Homelessness

On Tuesday evening, February 21, we skipped the pancakes and instead went down to the Crisis Skylight cafe for a live discussion on homelessness.

The panel consisted of  Neil Munslow Housing and Welfare Rights Services Manager, Newcastle city council

 

 Catherine Hattam, Housing Options Manager, Gateshead Council

 

June Grimes, Director of Crisis Skylight Newcastle

Ted Dickenson, People’s Kitchen

Lindsay Cross Project Director West End Refugee Service 

and Kim McMaster Young Peoples Service manager, Your Homes Newcastle

Diane Stewart of the Cyrenians chaired the discussion

The questions - some put by the audience others which had been sent in covered topics such as

*Statistics on rough sleepers including whether there is a higher proportion of ex- service men and women ending up homeless / how we can help? / why aren’t there more agencies that can verify people as rough sleeping? / what more can be done?

*Welfare reform and its effects / the localism bill / single room rate effects etc

*Statistics on destitute asylum seekers

*How to help young people more – why aren’t there more jobs / support for first time buyers etc.

*Generally what changes are needed to end homelessness

Podcast here 

 

 

Teenage Runaways

A few facts....
Every five minutes a child in the UK runs away from home.
Between 1 April 2009 - 31 March 2010:
• 613 young people were reported missing to Northumbria Police
in the Newcastle area.
• Some of these young people went missing more than once, meaning there were
946 reported incidents involving young people going missing from
Newcastle.
• On average 3 in 4 young people who went missing were missing from
home, with 1 in 4 young people missing from a care placement.
• 182 young people went missing more than once.

Kirsten Hall from SCARPA came to tell us about the support they can offer to young people who leave home.

SCARPA aims to help young people:

• be 'safe from harm'
• stop going missing
• reduce risky behaviour
• exit situations of exploitation.

SCARPA supports young people by providing:

• help with any immediate needs that young people have
• a safe place in the city centre
• ongoing support – we aim to be in contact with young people at least twice a week or  more if needed 
• support in accessing, negotiating and maintaining relationships with other service providers.

We heard recordings of a number of young people speaking about their experiences of running away, of risky situations they had been in and of the help and support they had received.

Wendy Wallace from Your Homes Newcastle (YHN) came along with Kayleigh and Michael from Youth Voice.

Kayleigh and Michael had both become homeless as young people and spoke about their experiences and the help they had received. As peer educators at Youth Voice, they go to schools to speak to young people about issues around homelessness

and how to deal with them.

Our guests spoke about the hazards young people can meet online, issues of trust - who do you trust? Problems that can arise if you have your own apartment and suddenly everyone wants to come and party...

Some useful information:

SCARPA, Brunswick Methodist Church, Brunswick Place, Newcastle, NE1 7BJ

Tel: 0191 221 0836 Text: 07715 122 759 Email: sca@childsoc.org.uk

Young people’s FREEPHONE number: 0808 178 9185 

Housing Advice Centre: 0191 277 1711

YHN Young People's Service: 0191 277 1190 

Youth Voice website

Outpost - Advice centre for young people between 16 and 25 who are gay (or who think they may be gay) and need help with housing  email: admin@outpostproject.org  
www.outpostproject.org

Childline - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if you need someone to talk to: 0800 1111

Childline website

CEOP - Child Exploitation Online Protection  - this website is full of advice about how to stay safe online

We were saddened when doing the research for this programme to hear how many people said we needed to speak to the young offenders units in various places. Young people may have many reasons for leaving home and being in that situation does not automatically mean that they are or will become offenders. Most of all they need help, support and someone to talk to.

We do plan, however to make a programme later in the year about young offenders, and invite organisations or individuals to contact us if they are interested in taking part.

PODCAST