Councils, charities and corporations discussed the current obstacles facing young homeless people who want to work during the roundtable event on Centrepoint’s latest research.
Do you think you will be able to achieve your employment goals? Career planning is a daunting topic on the best of days, and for young people experiencing homelessness accessing and progressing into a career of their choice can be especially difficult.
For our latest research “Untapped Resource”, we asked homeless young people about their employment experiences and aspirations and explored some of the issues holding them back.
Last week, we discussed the findings during a roundtable event in Central Hall attended by civil servants, corporate partners, local authorities and charities. We also heard from people with lived experience of youth homelessness and discussed policy issues raised by the research.
Making Work Pay
Young people in supported accommodation find themselves in a catch 22 when it comes to employment. Current benefit rules mean that when a young person in supported accommodation earns more than a certain amount a week, they lose access to Housing Benefit. In some cases, this can mean that a young person is worse off financially if they take on more hours at work.
This was a cause of frustration for many roundtable attendees, one of whom explained that the risk of rent arrears has led some providers of supported accommodation to dissuade their tenants from seeking employment of any kind. There was consensus that providers should instead encourage young people to seek employment despite the benefits disincentive – not least because, as roundtable attendees emphasized, many young people experiencing homelessness want to work!
Although it is too early to tell if the Universal Credit taper rate will be changed following last week’s election, we hope that Labour will address the issue as part of its planned benefits review. In our Making Work Pay in Supported Accommodation report, we outlined the steps the Government needs to take to enable young people in supported accommodation to become financially independent: reduce the taper rate from 65 per cent to 55 per cent to bring it in line with Universal Credit, and increase the applicable amount within Housing Benefit.
Supporting young people
Alex Bodie, Director of Community Housing & Healthcare at Together Money - one of Centrepoint’s corporate partners and part funder of the research - emphasized the role of parents in enabling their children to gain employment experience and suggested that homeless young people often lack this resource.
Sadie Odeogberin, Head of Centrepoint Works, also gave a brief overview of the ways in which Centrepoint supports young people in their education and employment journeys – from providing bursaries to developing interview and CV-writing skills, as well as the holistic support that staff provide to young people.
Sadie and her team also work closely with employers to help them create a positive working environment for homeless young people and ensure that they will be a good fit for their new roles.
One of Centrepoint’s corporate partners explained that the benefits issue poses challenges to employers too: it can be difficult to carve out part-time roles that do not exceed the taper rate threshold for homeless young people - particularly in hospitality, where workers might be asked to take on shifts on an ad-hoc basis to cover for sick or absent colleagues.
She added that hiring managers need to be supported to meet the needs of employees with experiences of homelessness, and that they should be informed to challenge misconceptions and potential discrimination about youth homelessness. Roundtable attendees agreed that stigma remains a major barrier to employment for young homeless people, and homeless people in general.
Short-term fixes
Charities and local authorities spoke of several mechanisms that are currently being trialled or implemented to help young people gain employment experience without going into rent arrears. Stepping Stone Accommodation, such as Centrepoint’s Independent Living and St Basil’s Live and Work programmes, allows young people to earn and live, while living in sub-market rent accommodation.
One young person in the research spoke about how Stepping Stone Accommodation had helped them to be able to build on their employment experiences and aspirations:
“Because I was paying a third of my wages, it gave me that confidence to start doing a bit more stuff because I had the financial means to do it.” – Daniel, London
An attendee spoke about the use of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) on an ad-hoc basis to support young people who are in employment and living in supported accommodation, although attendees stressed that the process of accessing DHP is complex.
Indeed, neither of these options represents a long-term solution. Attendees described them as “plasters”: short-term fixes to a problem that only policy change can address.
Most urgently, the Government must Make Work Pay for young people living in supported accommodation by reducing the Housing Benefit taper rate to bring it in line with Universal Credit; and increasing the applicable amount in Housing Benefit. In helping homeless young people realize their aspirations and their potential, the Government would be doing both itself and employers a major favour.
