Accommodation
Housing Options for Young People
Click on the housing options below for information:
The family home
In most cases, the family home is the most appropriate living environment for children and young people. A secure base with the support of family members provides an important protective factor against reoffending, as well as homelessness. However, there will always be some instances where the family home is not an appropriate living environment.
Wherever possible, additional support to a young person and his or her family, through mediation, family group conferencing, parenting support services, or the use of mentors, should be considered to help reduce pressure on family relationships and prevent a young person leaving home in an unplanned way and becoming homeless.
Support packages should also be sought through social services when necessary and appropriate, e.g. where the young person is a vulnerable child in need under the terms of section 17 of the Children Act 1989 [opens in new window].
Where the young person does have to leave the family home, maintaining the support of significant family members will help the young person manage independent living.
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Foster care
Foster care provides accommodation for one or more young people in a family environment. It is used by social services authorities to provide a supportive family setting for young people in care, on a short, medium or long-term basis. Placements for those on remand are often part of the local authority's general foster carer pool. Some authorities and YOTs, however, have arrangements for specialist foster care schemes working specifically with children on remand. The Board is also piloting the use of intensive fostering as another option for consideration.
Children and young people can be remanded to local authority accommodation at very short notice, so access to available places is often limited. Ideally where there is no specialist remand provision efforts should be made to ensure some placements within the general pool are reserved for remand cases, with retainers being paid to carers where placements are not filled. Social services authorities have targets for reducing offending among looked-after children.
For more information on remand fostering see the Action for Children website [opens in new window].
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Supported lodgings
Supported lodgings are provided by individuals in the community offering a room in their home with varying degrees of support. This provides a safe and supportive environment for young people and an opportunity for them to develop independent living skills. Between 60–80% of residents in supported lodgings schemes are 16 to 17-year-olds.
Individual supported lodgings schemes recruit, train and support a network of providers on a local basis and provide accommodation on a short-term basis. Schemes may be run by the voluntary sector, housing associations or by local authorities. Additional housing-related support may be provided to both landlords and residents.
There are several advantages of supported lodgings, such as its community base, its relatively low cost and a capacity to work with very challenging young people. In addition, by the nature of the provision, it provides an additional source of accommodation by engaging owner-occupiers – particularly valuable in areas of housing shortage.
Supported lodgings may be suitable for:
Funding for supported lodgings depends on the status of the young person. For those leaving care, schemes may be funded by social services (see the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000). For those not in care, housing benefit is payable for rent, while support costs are eligible for Supporting People funding.
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Hostels
Hostels provide temporary accommodation with varying degrees of support. The term ‘hostel’ covers a wide variety of arrangements, but generally refers to accommodation containing some shared facilities. Some hostels meet emergency housing needs on a direct access basis. Others provide move-on from direct access facilities or longer-term accommodation. Most cannot be accessed without an assessment of eligibility and suitability and tend to cater only for over-18s. Hostels are not generally considered to be suitable for young people under the age of 18, or for young people with offending behaviour.
Accessing emergency placements is important and can prevent custodial remands, as well as provide a place to go on release. Some YOTs have arrangements with providers to pay retainers on bed spaces so that immediate access can be secured when emergencies arise. Hostel provision should, however, only be used as part of a planned move-on process.
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Approved premises
17-year-olds can access probation hostels, with the consent of the Probation Service, and it is possible to negotiate the use of such vacancies from time to time where it can be proved that this type of accommodation will be beneficial to risk management in the early days following release.
Approved premises, however, should only be used for offenders who pose risks to themselves or the community. This type of provision is not available to young people under 17.
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Foyers
There are a variety of foyer models, but most combine accommodation with training and educational opportunities. Participation in training or education is usually a condition of acceptance into a foyer scheme. This may be a suitable option for young people who are relatively motivated and independent. However, young offenders with chaotic lives may find it difficult to engage consistently in training and education and this can pose access problems. By talking with foyer providers, and sitting on management steering groups, YOTs may be able to encourage foyers to work more closely with the young offender client group.
Several foyers are taking a more proactive interest in working with young offenders and are developing schemes to work with young people coming out of custody. See www.foyer.net [opens in new window] for more information.
As with hostels, funding for the support element is usually provided via Supporting People and rent via housing benefit, or social services payments for care leavers.
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Supported housing
Supported housing covers a variety of arrangements from self-contained, to cluster or shared arrangements, with varying levels of support. Registered social landlords are the main providers of supported housing for young people leaving care or who are otherwise vulnerable. There are also other specialist supported housing providers. Supported housing will usually provide housing-related support to help a young person prepare for independent living. Many schemes will be accessible through social services' leaving care arrangements, through housing departments for young homeless people. Support services are funded through Supporting People.
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Floating support
Floating support services allow support to be provided irrespective of where a young person is living. For example, when a young person moves out of supported housing, where services have been provided as part of the accommodation arrangements, they may not be ready to live without continued support. Floating support can move with the young person and be tailored to meet their needs. It can be provided in any type of accommodation and will be funded through Supporting People. There has been a significant increase in floating support schemes as a result of the Supporting People arrangements. Floating support schemes may be particularly relevant for young offenders who have been excluded from certain housing because of their behaviour.
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Mainstream housing
For young people who are ready to live independently or who are receiving support services not tied to their housing, independent accommodation – via the private sector, registered social landlords or local authority – may be required.
Rents in the local authority and housing association sector will be subsidised, whereas market rents are payable in the private sector. Housing benefit restrictions apply to young people under 25 living in the private sector and applicants are limited to the single-room rent housing benefit level. In exceptional cases discretionary housing benefit payments can be sought to cover rents above this level, e.g. where it can be evidenced that there is no accommodation available within the single-room rent limit and the young person has an urgent housing need. Accessing discretionary payments will require direct communication between the YOT, the housing benefits office and possibly the homeless persons unit.
Housing and social services may have arrangements with private landlords to provide accommodation for young vulnerable people. Private lets will usually require the payment of a deposit and rent in advance. Access to rent deposit guarantee schemes and bond schemes that help people on a low income or other identified client groups to access private rented accommodation may be possible. The local housing authority will have information on local schemes.
Few registered social landlords or local housing authorities will provide full independent secure or assured tenancies to young people under the age of 18. There are a number of reasons for this, including:
- concerns that young people do not have the life skills to be able to maintain a tenancy
- the ongoing legal debate over whether young people under the age of 18 can hold a tenancy in their own right
- concerns about possible risks caused by such factors as the nature of offending, peer influence and mental health or substance misuse problems (see our Introduction page for a full list of possible concerns).
As a result, most local housing providers will insist on a guarantor before agreeing to allocate tenancies to young people under 18. However, this is a contentious area of the law and housing providers can be challenged on the issue, as young people can hold equitable tenancies and can contract for necessaries in life, of which housing is one.
Finding a guarantor can be difficult. If there are supportive members in the young person’s immediate or extended family they should be approached in the first instance. Social services can take on the guarantor role in order to meet their statutory duties under the Children’s Act 1989 and the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000. YOTs can challenge when requests for social services to take on this role are met with an outright refusal without assessment of the case or reasonable explanation. There is also nothing to stop a local housing authority taking on the role of guarantor in order to discharge their full duty to a young person under part VII of the Housing Act 1996.
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Bed-and-breakfast accommodation
Housing authorities, social services and other agencies that need to place young people at short notice will often resort to using bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Neither the YJB nor the Audit Commission (Youth Justice 2004 report, opens in new window) considers that bed-and-breakfast is suitable accommodation for young vulnerable people. Young people who offend may be at risk of harm in such establishments, or they may pose risks to others in certain situations. The use of bed-and-breakfast should be avoided and its use challenged on the basis of unsuitability wherever possible and appropriate.
It is acknowledged that there may be occasions when it has to be used to meet an emergency housing need. Where this happens YOTs should work with the placing organisation to ensure that young people are provided with support and that clear arrangements are in place for moving on within a specified time.
Local homelessness strategies provide an opportunity to address the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation and to work towards developing alternative forms of temporary accommodation, working with other young people’s agencies and housing providers.
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Nightstop schemes
Nightstop schemes provide emergency accommodation for young homeless people aged 16–25 in the homes of a network of volunteer hosts. Young people can be referred to a Nightstop scheme from a housing advice project, young people’s project, social services department, housing department, youth service, probation service or college. Nightstop schemes can provide a useful source of emergency accommodation for those in need for short periods. The Nightstop National Network [opens in new window] has details of local schemes.
The use of Nightstop does not mean a local authority has discharged its homelessness duties under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 and the accommodation should not be deemed to be suitable for all young people.
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