The Plight of a Homeless Young Man

Ellie2758

Connexions are still helping my daughter and she was 19 last September.

jezmyers

PM sent. will post on here if OP says it's ok.

tesuhoha

jezmyers wrote: »

PM sent. will post on here if OP says it's ok.

Thank you. I got your pm and it is okay to post on here. However, I am waiting to see what the outcome of the Council visit is before I get involved. My son's other friend's mother is keeping him at her house for the present time and I have not seen him at all. I am willing to give him my support but it seems that she wants to do this and so I am not as worried as I was but will be the backup if need be.

I have found out that there is another yet older brother and they went to play poker at his house last night, apart from my son who was unwell with a cold. I asked my son why the lad could not live with him and he told me that the oldest brother is on the second oldest brother's side. I asked if they are not just trying to help him to stand on his own two feet and he said 'well yes, but its a bit harsh throwing him out on the street.'. So there is a bit more of a family network than I had thought. However, I dont know what's going through their minds and Im just waiting to see what evolves from this situation in the next couple of weeks. If the worst happens I am here and will fall back on the advice and help offered. Thank you all very much.

sukey13

I would like to point out that there are other homeless charities than shelter.

E.g. http://www.crisis.org.uk/

There are also church associations in some cities that do similar good work.

Ellie2758

I just wondered whether there was an update on this situation. Are single people without dependants entitled to any kind of benefit support?

seven-day-weekend

Yes, single people can get benefits but AFAIK the Council don't have to provide them with housing.

bringmeshoes

i have been in the situation of being homeless through no fault of my own. when i was 20 my stepdad told me i had to leave uni to get a job, i told him i wouldnt leave uni so i got home that night to find all my stuff in bin bags on the street.
i went to the council and they told me that as i didnt have kids/learning difficulties or was an asylum seeker (their exact words not mine, at the time my town had just started to take a lot of kosovan refugees) there was absolutley nothing they could do to help me, even when i told them i had nowhere at all to go. they said i could try the ymca but if they had nothing then i was basically on the streets. lucliky for me the ymca had one room free as somebody had been evicted that day (for fiddling with the elcetricity). this ymca was a custom built one so everybody had their own room, mine also had kitchen and bathroom so was more like a bedsit, they ran classes for people that needed them from basic literacy skills to budgetig and basic cooking skills.
ironically due to this i had to leave uni anyway and got a job, i was the only person in the whole of the ymca that was working, they really helped me a lot as i had absolutley nowhere to turn.
well i managed to get my life sorted out and at the age of 26 i finally manged to get my degree after working full time while at uni.
i now rent my own flat, have a job and lead a (relativley) normal life
i wasnt aware of anything like shelter or crisis until i joined mse and i thnk its so sad that young people in a developed country can be held with such little regard, not everyone who is homeless is a 'bad apple' i have never commited a crime or taken drugs but there are a lot of people out there who believe all homeless people are drug addcits.
i really hope this young lad gets a break before anything might happen to him

Savvy_Sue

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Yes, single people can get benefits but AFAIK the Council don't have to provide them with housing.

Unless they're classed as 'vulnerable'. Which is a strictly defined term, not including 'they'll be on the street if they don't get help'.

YMCA and places like that do an excellent job as well.

PasturesNew

Yes, this is how easy it is to become homeless. You run out of sofas.

Single people are pretty much left to their own devices. Bottom of the list.

What happens to him in the next month could easily set the rest of his life...

I hope it all works out OK for him, but there's really no safety net to be had for singles. It's the fact nobody would care if I had no home that's kept me working hard and scared all my life.

Oldernotwiser

The key to this young man's problem and to his future is getting a job fast! If he get's a council bedsit and is able to get HB for it he'll be left with little incentive to get his life together and progress. The OP will help him more by concentrating on this side of things rather than the accommodation situation. An adult needs to take a longer view of things and encourage him to do so as well. With a job he may be able to move back to live with a brother or at least to pay his own way in a flat share. I'm afraid that I think that a quick fix solution could be the worst thing to happen to him.