Good Idea: App to identify inspiring routes out of homelessness

Name: Database on youth homelessness

Provider: Centrepoint

Homelessness is often said to be a hidden problem. This is particularly so for young people, many of who will surf the sofas of friends or live in temporary accommodation for long periods rather than be living on the streets. Consequently, getting an accurate picture of who is homeless and the reasons for this is hard for many support agencies working with young people, and is one of the reasons why youth homelessness charity Centrepoint won half a million pounds of funding from internet giant Google to help get a handle on the scale of the problem.

The charity, which works with around 6,000 homeless 16- to 25-year-olds every year, wants to create the first national database on youth homelessness and its causes.

Nick Connolly, head of corporate development at Centrepoint, says the lack of data on youth homelessness makes it difficult for the charity to tackle the causes.

"There's fantastic work going on to tackle youth homelessness across the country, but we need to understand what's working and why, if we're to end youth homelessness," he explains.

"There isn't an aggregated central data service about homeless young people and provision. We want to create that so we can do a proper data analysis of it."

The charity wants to collect the information from young people who have experience of homelessness and have accessed support services. It hopes to do this through a new app, which the charity is about to start developing following a successful bid for the funding through the Google UK Impact Challenge, which supports organisations that want to use technology to solve a social problem.

"This is quite a risky project and Google has embraced that and understands the potential pitfalls," Connolly explains.

"They have been very supportive and it has been a very positive experience."

The app, which will be available for use on smartphones and tablets, will be similar to social network websites such as Facebook and Twitter, and will allow young people to feed back on homelessness services.

Connolly says the app will allow young people to keep in touch with the charity and will act as an "alumni club". "It would be similar to something most universities have, that keeps young people in contact with us," he explains.

"We will be able to survey them and ask them questions at any time.

"Through the app we aim to analyse the most in-depth data on youth homelessness ever collated, discovering why they become homeless and the interventions most likely to lead them to a successful independent future."

Causes of homelessness

Connolly says it is important that Centrepoint is able to map out typical causes of homelessness by region so that areas can support each other to improve. "We will be able to look at which interventions work where and because we will have done all those different data analyses in the background, we will know where similar situations exist," he explains.

Equally important, he says, is understanding the particular problems young people across the country face so that the charity, and other key agencies, can try to tackle them.

"In London, for example, there are opportunities to get jobs," he says. "But you can't get accommodation.

"Whereas in Sunderland there is housing stock but there are very few jobs. So clearly we need different types of interventions but we don't have the data on a national scale to prove this."

In addition, Connolly says the app will enable the charity to share success stories of formerly homeless young people who are now living independently, which he hopes will inspire others to overcome their problems. "We want to create a positive vision of young people moving on from homelessness and doing their best to be successful, inspiring each other," he explains.

Connolly expects the app will take two years to develop, during which time the charity's tech team will consult young people to ensure it is fit for purpose.

"We're essentially starting from scratch but we're hoping to have some kind of pilot in place in two years," he says.

"Centrepoint has got a commitment to ending youth homelessness and sees this project as a key marker on this journey.

"We can't hope to end a problem, or at least go a long way to solving it, if we don't know the detail of what's going on."