‘A Better Way Home - Community Hosting to Prevent Youth Homelessness’ Report Launch
On 28th April, End Youth Homelessness Cymru hosted an event to launch our report ‘A Better Way Home – Community Hosting to Prevent Youth Homelessness’. We were very happy to be joined by over 50 attendees from across the sector representing local authorities and third sector organisations.
Community Hosting schemes provide young people with a room of their own in the home of a trained and vetted host. Both the host and the young person are supported by a specialist organisation such as a local authority or a third sector organisation. This combined and tailored support enables young people to develop independent living skills in a supportive family environment. Community hosting schemes can work particularly well for young people who need a more nurturing environment.
The purpose of the report was to evaluate existing use of community hosting schemes, to present a set of service characteristics and aspirations for how each variant can be most effectively delivered, and to promote development of community hosting to prevent youth homelessness in Wales.
As part of the report, we spoke to…
Young people
“I feel because I live with a family, & I am a family person myself, I feel included. I feel like I am part of something. I feel loved and supported. That’s the main thing isn’t it?”
Community hosts
“If you put a young person in Bed & Breakfast with all the paedophiles and drug addicts and that it is costing them £50 a night to keep them there and it doesn’t make sense. They have got to be out of the door at 10 o’clock in the morning. What is all that about? When they could be offering the money to supported lodgings providers then they have got a lovely house and a lovely room. They have their own room and 24 hour support basically”
Local Authorities
“I can honestly say that 90% or 95% of my carers are not doing it for the money. It is because they want to. The majority of them have brought up their own children. My longest serving carer has been doing it for over 30 years and she is fab…She has taken young people from remand centres and from prisons. She says ‘if he is good enough for the queen he is good enough for me’”
And Third-Sector Providers
“Looking at people (hosts) with broadly relevant experience in their backgrounds. That hasn’t worked. One of the significant things is, you can have all the experience in the world working with the most chaotic, the most disadvantaged young people but when it comes to that young person sharing your home environment, it is a very different thing”.
…To develop a picture of community hosting in Wales.
The findings of the report were presented by our former Policy and Research Officer Jemma and we were also joined by brilliant community hosts and a young person who shared their experiences of community hosting.
If you would like to find out more about community hosting and how it can be used to prevent youth homelessness in Wales please read our report here.