Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what measures are in place to provide housing support to care leavers; and what additional support his Department plans to provide after April 2017.

Mr Marcus Jones

Ensuring that young people leaving care have accommodation and support that is suitable for their needs is a priority for this Government. The homelessness legislation provides a strong safety net for vulnerable people. Care leavers aged 18-21 facing homelessness have a priority need for accommodation, as do vulnerable care leavers who are older than 21.

We have funded youth homelessness agency St Basils to develop and support the roll-out of the Positive Pathway Framework. This supports local authority children’s services and housing teams and other local partners to work together to prevent homelessness and meet the housing and support needs of vulnerable young people, including care leavers. To build on this, we supported St Basils to develop a specific Care Leavers Accommodation and Support Framework, in partnership with Barnardo’s, in 2015.

We have also invested £15 million in the Fair Chance Fund, a payment by results programme which aims to test new approaches to improving accommodation, employment and training outcomes for vulnerable homeless 18-25 year olds. Over 200 of the young people on the programme have previously been looked after.

We will ensure that vulnerable young people who are in need of support for their housing needs continue to receive it.