Frequently asked questions

Centrepoint is the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity.

We support young people aged 16–25 across 60 services in London, Yorkshire, Manchester and the North East of England. Homeless young people can stay with Centrepoint for up to two years. After this, we keep supporting them for another six months to make sure they can live independently.

We provide accommodation, health support and life skills to get homeless young people back into education, training and employment. Amazingly, 79% of Centrepoint residents say they're satisfied or very satisfied with the overall service we provide.

Local council services refer young people to Centrepoint. A lot of the young people who come to us have experienced extreme housing needs. These are often caused by issues such as family breakdown, abuse, and mental and physical health problems. We also work with care leavers and young people who have criminal records.

Yes. Our accommodation has a cost attached to support the ongoing maintenance of the building. We remind young people who are paying rent that this is a priority.

When a young person signs a tenancy agreement, they agree to pay rent and other charges weekly. It’s very important that young people do not get behind with their payments.

The rent we charge is significantly reduced from the market rate in our services’ local area. Paying rent also teaches young people about taking responsibility for managing their finances. We help young people to understand and manage this.

Yes – around 20% of the young people we support have slept rough.

However the majority of young people are referred to us by the local council and are known as “hidden homeless”. These are young people trapped in a cycle of sleeping on night buses, at train stations or on friends' sofas.

Unfortunately, no. Centrepoint is not a missing person’s agency, and it’s highly unlikely a missing person would arrive at one of our services. We’re also unable to provide temporary accommodation.

You can find useful information about how to register a missing person on the Missing People’s website. You should also report them to the Police.

We can support and advise young people if:

• they are homeless or at risk of homelessness
• they live in the UK
• they are aged between 16–25

If you know a young person who needs housing advice, please refer them to the Centrepoint Helpline.

If they are below the age of 18, contact your local children’s services immediately.

Unfortunately we can’t accept referrals from young people, friends or family. Centrepoint works on a referrals basis, so local council services refer young people to us.

Young people must present to their local council as homeless or at risk of homelessness. If they are accepted, the council will assess them and work out their housing needs. If they are referred to Centrepoint, we will then place them in the right accommodation based on their individual needs.

If you see someone rough sleeping, please contact StreetLink. StreetLink enables members of the public to connect people sleeping rough with the local services that can support them. 

You can also call the Shelter Helpline on 0808 800 4444. They’re open 8am–8pm on weekdays and 9am–5pm on weekends.

Please be aware Centrepoint is unable to visit a homeless young person as we don’t have an outreach programme.

Thank you for your kind offer – this is what we would call “supported lodgings”. This isn’t something we currently offer or support as we don’t have the necessary procedures in places.

However, we do endorse this type of provision as it can be very effective in meeting the needs of young people. If this is something you’re considering, please contact your local council.

Thank you so much for considering supporting our work.

You can make a regular donation by Direct Debit or a one-off donation.

Donate now

You can also call our friendly Supporter Care team on 0800 23 23 20. You can speak to them about setting up a donation by bank transfer or standing order.

Room sponsorship is a great way to support homeless young people. A room at Centrepoint gives a homeless young person a safe place to stay and the first step back into education, employment and training.

Room sponsors support us with a minimum gift of £12 per month. They then receive regular updates about how their support is changing lives and a welcome pack when they first sign up.

Become a room sponsor

We unfortunately don’t offer the option to sponsor a specific young person. The young people we support have individual and sometimes complex needs, which means there isn’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to supporting them. Due to this, we don’t know how much or what type of support they may need or how long a young person might stay with us, which makes offering sponsorship in this way very difficult. 

You can however sponsor a room for a young person.

Sponsor a room

Yes. If you'd like to donate by post you can send a cheque, along with your details to this address:

Freepost CENTREPOINT
25 Camperdown Street
London
E1 8DZ

We would recommend sending a cheque instead of cash in the post.

Freepost addresses do not require a stamp, however if you would like to use one it will reduce our costs.

Gift Aid is a great way of increasing the value of your donation at no extra cost to you.

If you’re a UK taxpayer, we can reclaim the basic rate tax (25%) on your gift. This means if you donate £100, with Gift Aid it will be worth £125 to Centrepoint.

The extra support is taken from the tax you have paid the government in the last four years. You can claim Gift Aid on your donation by phone, website and donation form.

If you have any questions, please contact our Supporter Care team on 0800 23 23 20 or supportercare@centrepoint.org.

Our staff's salaries are similar to equivalent roles in the charitable and public sectors.

Centrepoint does not try to compete with salaries in the private sector. However, we must still attract the most talented, experienced professionals to ensure the best support for homeless young people. Safeguarding vulnerable young people and their futures requires professionalism and expertise.

Centrepoint’s Senior Executive team is smaller than those at other charities. This means the people in each role have to possess a broader range of skills and experience.

15 of our executives receive a salary of over £60,000, including our Chief Executive whose salary is over £150,000. 

See our remuneration policy on our finances page

You can stop receiving communications from Centrepoint at any time. You can do this by contacting our Supporter Care team by phone 0800 23 23 20, email supportercare@centrepoint.org or you can update your contact preferences here.

If you would like to tailor the communications you receive, please discuss your preferences with the team and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

We completely understand things change and at some point you may want to amend or cancel your gift.

If you would like to change your donation, please contact our Supporter Care team on 0800 23 23 20 or supportercare@centrepoint.org.

You can also change your donation here.

Please note it takes three working days to amend or cancel gifts. If your gift is due to be debited within three working days, we may not be able to cancel it in time and you should contact your bank.

Thank you for your kind offer. The items we’re able to accept depends on the needs of our young people at the time you’re making the donation. We can’t always accept donations because of a lack of storage space at our services.

Full details on how to donate and which items we accept.

If you have non-perishable food to donate, please send it to the Trussell Trust and let them know Centrepoint referred you. Once the Trust has received a certain amount of food donations on behalf of Centrepoint, they will provide grocery vouchers to our young people. Please note the Trussell Trust is unable to accept perishable food.

Every homeless young person’s story we share is true. However, we may use a model or an alias to protect the young person’s identity.

Our hostels are generally not open to the public. This is mainly to protect the young people we support.

However, we do occasionally run supporter events where you can hear from our young people and staff.

Please email our Supporter Care team at supportercare@centrepoint.org to find out more.

We run telephone fundraising campaigns throughout the year to thank our supporters for their generosity and to let them know how they can support Centrepoint further, if they are in a position to. 

We are currently calling supporters from the following number: 0117 325 4081

If you would like to find our more, or update your contact preferences, please contact our friendly Supporter Care team by calling 0800 23 23 20 or emailing supportercare@centrepoint.org.

It’s great to hear you’re interested in supporting us by volunteering – thank you.

We recruit for roles based on the needs of the young people we support. There might be times when we don’t have any roles available and other occasions when we have a lot of positions to fill. 

When we are looking for new volunteers to join us, we normally ask for a minimum commitment of three months.

Check out our current volunteering opportunities

If you would like us to notify you when there are new volunteering opportunities available, please email volunteer@centrepoint.org. Please provide us with contact details and the location where you’re interested in volunteering.

Yes, that’d be amazing – thank you!

There are lots of ways you can fundraise for Centrepoint. You can do your own fundraising by holding your own events or activities. You can take part in a challenge event - either with your own place or a Centrepoint place. Or you can take part in our annual Sleep Out event.

Please visit the fundraising section of the website to see you how you can get started.

Before putting on your own event, it’s worth checking out our Sleep Out pages to see if one has already been organised in your area.

If you’re still interested in holding your own, please visit our hold your own Sleep Out page – there are lots of tips and resources there.

We’d love you to fundraise for us!

You can fundraise however you like, but we can provide tips and materials to help you every step of the way.

For fundraising tips and resources

Please register your event here and email our Community and Events team at events@centrepoint.org to let us know how we can help you. 

Yes, we’d love you to help out. Please email our Corporate Partnerships team at corporate@centrepoint.org and they’ll be happy to discuss this further with you.

Thank you so much for offering to support our young people. If you’re an employer and would like to talk more about offering job opportunities for Centrepoint young people please email our team at CPWEmployerRelations@centrepoint.org

If you’re in Sunderland, Yorkshire, London or Manchester, please take a look at our partnering and collaboration opportunities, or email the Partnering team at centrepointpartnering@centrepoint.org.

If you’re in another part of the country, please email EveryYouth at faye@everyyouth.org.uk

It is great to hear that you are doing research into homelessness. As much as we would love to be able to help with your research project, I’m afraid we are unable to do so. We receive so many requests for help like this that we simply do not have the staff resources to be able to answer research questions.

You may able to find the answers to some of your questions in the Policy and Research section of our website. We wish you the best of luck with your research.

Thank you for wanting to help support homeless people, but unfortunately we don’t have the resources to advise on projects designed to help with the very broad issue of youth homelessness.