Homeless lifeline as adds new
SELF-ISOLATING during the coronavirus lockdown can be a tough time for anybody.
But being a homeless young parent during the pandemic can be particularly challenging as they try to keep their children occupied.
Rebecca Crosby is a service manager for homeless charity Centrepoint working with young parents at Lewis Crescent – a hostel in Sunderland.
Lewis Crescent has got eight two-bedroom flats available for young parents aged 16-25 who have a maximum of three children.
For those sofa-surfing with nowhere to go or those who have been kicked out of their family home, Lewis Crescent provides a safe space for young parents and their children. But Rebecca said the coronavirus pandemic has caused an extra layer of stress with some of the young people she works with too scared to even go outside.
She said: “They’re absolutely petrified, they’re really scared. Some of them don’t want to leave their flats, they don’t even want to go out in the garden and sit with staff at a safe distance for a bit of fresh air. We haven’t just got the young parent to think about, we’ve got babies and young children too.
“When the bulk buying was going on, I remember driving around for nappies, formula, wipes and I couldn’t find any anywhere. It’s not just milk to put in your tea, these babies need their formula milk.
“Luckily I managed to find some in the neighbouring town but these parents can’t afford to go to several different shops so I honestly don’t know what they would have done.”
Rebecca and her staff are trying to source activities to keep the children occupied and the parents calm and relaxed during an extremely worrying time.
She said: “We’re trying to keep them busy because some of them are really struggling. We’ve been encouraging them to go in the garden and we’ve been giving the children colouring books and things to do. These parents are on every kind of social media platform and they are scared about what they are seeing so we’re trying to get them to stay away from Facebook and remain positive.
“We’re asking them to take photos and videos of their time and we’re going to start getting them to make a scrapbook to document their time during Covid-19.
“Hopefully they don’t look back