Pressure Increases on UK Homeless Charities as Demand Grows

On this week’s Thrift Urban Housing blogspot, I will be discussing the unprecedented rise in homelessness that has lead leading youth homeless charity Depaul UK to suggest a 300% increase in services would be required to meet the growing demand.

Thrift Urban Housing is a housing charity that supports less privileged people who are in need; people who are capable of taking care of themselves but need solid support in doing so.

Nightstop

On a previous Thrift Urban blog post I brought you the news that Cumbria County Council had approach Depaul to set up their innovative ‘Nightstop’ scheme in Cumbria. This scheme is an emergency accommodation service that enlisted volunteers to open their doors to homeless people for the night.

This perhaps emphasised the pressure and demand that Depaul were already under to stretch their services to other parts of the country where homelessness was not given as much attention as large cities or more urban areas.

Since the beginning of this scheme, Depaul have seen a significant increase in homeless people seeking their help. The demand for beds has soared by 300% in 12 months, meaning that the charity has been forced to turn away twice as many homeless people.

Demand Stretches Depaul

Depaul currently operates in just 25% of the country and over the past three month Nightstop North East found that it had to turn away 40 young homeless people just to lack of beds. Depaul has 46 volunteers in that region, but would need at least 65 to meet the current demand. In London, Depaul requires 5 hosts in every borough with a 100 minimum in the city overall. Currently, there are only 56 in the city.

With this in mind, Depaul may appeal to its hosts to accommodate young homeless people for more than the one night that is expected. Commenting on their predicament, Chief Executive of Depaul Martin Houghton-Brown said:

“Recent times have been tough on young people, with an estimated 80,000 becoming homeless or sleeping rough last year in the UK and demand for our services rising so fast we are having to turn young people away. This is forcing more and more to sleep in unsafe places, vulnerable to exploitation and harm.”