Commonweal supports three housing models designed to address youth homelessness

Commonweal Housing has partnered with three frontline youth sector organisations to investigate the viability of new housing and support models tackling injustices facing young people. The charity will fund organisations to conduct feasibility studies to test their housing-based solutions as part of the Call for New Ideas programme.

The Call for New Ideas 2024: Young People partners are:

• Leading youth homelessness charity, Depaul UK

• Break, a charity supporting young people leaving care in East Anglia

• Mental health charity MAC UK, based in Greater London.

This iteration of the Call exclusively focused on finding models aimed at supporting young adults over 18 with experience of the care system, and/or who have mental health issues or are neurodivergent, and/or have faced difficult experiences in the education system.

The decision to focus on these areas followed Commonweal- commissioned Homeless Link to conduct, identifying these injustices as key drivers of youth homelessness.

Depaul UK received funding from Commonweal to test a shared, specialist supported accommodation initiative for young adults who are neurodivergent and at risk of homelessness. By providing intensive training support, the proposed project intends to offer neurodiverse young people structure, routine and skills to prepare individuals for independent, shared living and reduce the future risk of homelessness among this cohort.

To address the lack of move-on options accessible for care leavers due to long social housing waiting lists, Break UK will test the viability of a 'tenancy switch model'. In practice, care leavers would initially live in a property supported by Break support staff, and when ready to move-on, the tenancy would be transferred into the young person's name. The proposed model aims to ensure care leavers can remain in a home where they feel confident and comfortable and promote clarity for their future.

Steve Hulme, Development Manager at Break, said: "As the pressure on social housing grows more and more young people leaving care are unable to get a home they can call their own, young people at Break tell us that housing uncertainty and temporary moves cause anxiety and can be retraumatising at a time in their life when they need safety, security and stability.

"We are really excited to partner with Commonweal Housing to test aspirational housing solutions for young people leaving care that avoids more moves, housing registers and offers them a home where they feel safe and happy for as long as they want to live there."

Commonweal will also support MAC-UK, a mental charity working with 16-25 year olds vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and offending. The feasibility study will evaluate a cooperative housing model where young people would be involved in the design and responsible for the day to day running of the property - empowering individuals to identify and articulate their specific housing and support needs. This housing initiative aims to support homeless young adults who have also experienced school exclusions, exploitation, abuse, the criminal justice system, or the care system.

Organisations are currently conducting a short-term feasibility study to establish the viability of their proposed model and how it would operate as a property-based pilot project. The intention is for Commonweal to support successful models by developing them into multi-year pilots that the charity would support partners in bringing to life by acquiring property.

To streamline resources, recent iterations of Call for New Ideas have separately focused on the charity's thematic areas: the criminal justice system, young people, and the migration, asylum, and human trafficking systems.

Through Call for New Ideas: Criminal Justice, opened between August and September 2023, Commonweal funded four feasibility studies evaluating housing initiatives to tackle injustices facing individuals in contact with the criminal justice system. 

The Call will re-open in October 2024 to focus on the migration, asylum, and trafficking fields. Details will be available on our website in the coming weeks.