Holmes talks to some of the foyer's 210 residents about how their lives have improved since coming to the centre, and hears about their plans for the future. He also explains how the accommodation works, with the young people taking part in a two-phase journey over two years leading to their independence.
Unfortunately, Focus E15 is far from the norm. "The value of our visit this morning is it shows what is possible," says Holmes. "But it is still unusual."
Accommodation needs and experiences, a study by the Youth Justice Board, of which Holmes is a board member, found a lack of suitable accommodation for young people who had offended in nine of the 10 areas investigated.
"I think one of the interesting things about the research were the interviews with young people still living with their parents," says Holmes. "There were some real strengths about that, but also a range of tensions and difficulties that were being experienced."
He says the report highlighted that "the experiences of young people in supported housing were not as positive as we would want them to be. Sometimes it was because the way it was run was not sensitive, and young people did not feel that their voice was heard."
The YJB has used the research to influence its accommodation policy. "We believe wherever possible that young people should be able to live with their families," says Holmes. "But when young people are living in supported housing it is only going to be a positive experience if it is well managed, the quality of support given is good and young people feel their voices are being heard."
The problem for the YJB is that it does not run accommodation for young people, and neither do the youth offending teams it works with locally. Instead the organisation has to try to influence housing providers to make sure they put suitable facilities for young offenders in place.
The YJB is also working with the Government's affordable housing agency the Housing Corporation, where Holmes is also a board member, on bids for supported housing for vulnerable young people. Holmes says young offenders will be one of the groups that benefit.
"The evidence is that in many areas the youth offending teams don't have access to good quality supported housing for young offenders who need accommodation. So they end up putting young people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and a lot of young people end up sleeping on the floors of friends, which again, perhaps through lack of security, increases the risks of reoffending."
Earlier this year the Government announced plans to end the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for homeless 16- and 17-year-olds, charging housing charities Centrepoint and the YMCA England with setting up a national network of supported lodgings.
Holmes welcomes the move, and says the YJB is in talks with the Department of Communities and Local Government and the YMCA about the needs of young offenders. But as a former director of Shelter and director of housing in the London Borough of Camden, Holmes has seen many initiatives on homelessness come and go.
"There is a lack of appropriate forms of housing with the right kinds of support to help young people move on to a crime-free stage of their lives," he says. "There have been some moves in the right direction, but there is still a serious shortage of good quality supported housing accessible to young offenders."
- See Feature, p17
FYI
- Chris Holmes is a former director of homelessness charity Shelter, director of housing at Camden and director of the National Campaign for the Single Homeless
- Holmes was appointed CBE in 1998 for his services to homelessness
- He was appointed to the board of the YJB in 2003 and reappointed in 2006; he will serve until 2009
- In October 2004, he was recruited as a member of the Housing Corporation Board.
