Youth Homelessness: The Issue

75,000 young people experience homelessness each year....often through no fault of thier own.....

And these figures fail to account for the growing number of hidden homeless living in poor quality hostels or on friend's sofas.  It is believed there are now 250,000 people under the age of 25 who are considered "hidden homeless." 

The most common cause of youth homelessness is family breakdown, usually with parents or step-parents.  For many this is a consequence of long term conflict within the home and often involves violence. 

For others they may have recently left the care system, suffered abuse or bullying, been released from prison or suffered from mental health issues or bereavement. Increasing youth unemployment is also a serious factor with over 935,000 young people now classified as NEET (not in education, training and employment) up from 810,000 at the end of last year. 

The young people we work with will all have suffered from isolation and a lack of support throughout their short lives.  Mostly all they need is safe and secure accommodation, guidance and support and a sense of respect and compassion - things they will have never received before.  Once we provide them with these simple things, so many of the young people we work with at Depaul UK go onto lead positive and independent lives.

To read more about youth homelessness, to go our Research and Publications page to download some more information.

What Can I Do?

You can support Depaul UK in a number of ways so that we can work towards ensuring that no young person has to sleep rough.

Either through a direct donation, volunteering your time, holding an event or running a marathon; any help that you can give to support young homeless people in the UK today is a step towards helping a young person fulfil their potential.