‘Together, we can end youth homelessness in Wales’
THE young people who find themselves homeless have already gone through such difficult experiences on their way there.
It’s heartbreaking to know how vulnerable they are and how difficult it is for them to cope.
In 2016 the End Youth Homelessness Cymru partnership achieved a win with the petition I helped to lead which has seen a great reduction in the numbers of 16 and 17 year olds placed in unsuitable bed and breakfasts. A small but really important win.
Since that campaign I have worked with the partnership to look at how we keep building towards the end of youth homelessness in Wales.
As the nights get darker and colder and you walk around our towns and cities it’s impossible to avoid the increasing problem of homelessness and that is just the tip of the iceberg, with so much of it hidden from our view, particularly when it comes to young people.
We must keep working together to develop ideas that chip away at the problem of homelessness in Wales and I am very happy to be involved as an ambassador and actively contributing to the need for leadership, public engagement and resourcing the ideas.
The partnership is founded by Llamau, a leading Welsh charity for supporting homeless young people. In the past year they have introduced me to many young people, to help them develop their own campaigns, put forward their ideas and help give their voices a platform. The young people I’ve met at Llamau have further opened my eyes to terrifying things that are happening right here in Wales every single day. But they also showed me and the wider partnership that if we listen to them and enable them to put their ideas into action, there are ways we can reduce homelessness and make it easier for young people to get support. The best ideas come from those who have faced and continue to face the challenge of being homeless in Wales. It’s true that you don’t see many young people sleeping on the streets, but every year over 7,000 people under the age of 25 experience homelessness in Wales – 7,000 people. Very often, they’re not sleeping on the streets – they’re sleeping on sofas, in cars, on floors, and forced into making very risky decisions about where to sleep just to avoid the streets, placing them at serious risk of exploitation. Many of the young people I met told me that they simply hadn’t known where to turn when they first became homeless. Many of them simply didn’t know that homeless hostels existed, let alone how to access them – why would they, at such a young age? Despite going through horrific experiences at such a young age, they have built the resilience and confidence to achieve their dreams. With the right support, they’ve realised that they can achieve whatever they want to. For some of them, the conversation we had on a Saturday afternoon was enough to drive them to change things for other homeless young people. They started a petition to create a youth homeless helpline – for one free number to be created which would mean every young person could get the help and support they needed as soon as they became homeless. Over 95,000 people signed the petition, but there is still no 24-hour helpline for homeless young people. That’s why the End Youth Homelessness Cymru campaign has launched an appeal to fund a 24-hour helpline for Wales. Young people don’t become homeless during the convenience of office hours. For some of the young people I spoke to, the nights had been the scariest times for them.
Imagine how much safer young people would feel if they knew they could call the number at any time and get help and support to keep themselves safe. Imagine how much safer they’d be.
Please donate to the youth homeless helpline appeal today. However small or large, your support will quite literally change lives right here in Wales.
Together, we can end youth homelessness in Wales.