How young mothers overcome threat of homelessness

PROJECT

M3 Project's Teenage Family Service

PURPOSE

To provide accommodation and support for young parents

FUNDING

Initial funding to develop the service came through Lancashire's Supporting People programme. The Teenage Family Service is currently funded under contract to Lancashire County Council with this contract expected to be renegotiated and renewed in 2019. Income is also received through rent. The service's annual budget is £94,500

BACKGROUND

In 2003 a group of service providers in East Lancashire, including the local youth service and Connexions service, identified a gap in provision for homeless young people in the district and began to look for funding to provide lodgings-type accommodation. This work developed into specialist charity M3 Project, which helps some of the area's most vulnerable young people with advice, accommodation and support to overcome homelessness or the threat of homelessness. "While young people sleeping rough in cities and towns is a very visible part of the problem, many thousands more are experiencing hidden homelessness through having to live in temporary, insecure or unsafe accommodation and through a destructive cycle of sofa-surfing," says Alan Dorrington, charity manager at M3 Project.