Our Youth Services manager, Robin, has been invited to meet with the chair of Housing, Communities, and Local Government Committee, Florence Eshalomi MP. This is part of our involvement in the Youth Chapter Campaign (#YouthHomelessChapter) and meets an intention to hear directly from services that work alongside young people experiencing homelessness.

Collective Action

The campaign is a collective of over 150 frontline charities, like Caring in Bristol, that is calling for a youth-specific chapter in the Government’s new cross-departmental strategy to end homelessness. Like many other organisations, Caring in Bristol knows first-hand that young people experience specific and unique sets of issues that lead to and exacerbate their experience of homelessness. This calls for appropriate strategies, resources, and approaches that can create lasting change for young people facing homelessness – last year this affected over 118,000 young people. Our systems can and should do better, and the campaign exists to make this happen.

Three Campaign Strands

• Preventing youth homelessness before it happens
• Housing and support for young people facing homelessness
• Getting young people working and ready for independence

Government Scrutiny

Florence Eshalomi MP was appointed chair to the committee in September last year, and said, “I am delighted to be elected Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Fixing the housing crisis and ensuring more homes are built are crucial missions for the country and I am sure my Committee will wish to consider our approach to scrutinising the Government’s progress in these areas.”

Robin, and the Caring in Bristol team, feel that it’s important to be involved in campaigns like #YouthHomelessChapter, because it adds weight to the scrutiny needed to ensure that the urgent needs of young people facing and experiencing homelessness are considered and met. Frontline organisations, who have direct experience of homelessness, have an important role to play in holding key decision-makers to account.

Clear Demands

We’ll update you on the meeting, scheduled for July 14^th 2025 in London, so be sure to check our news section soon. ]Update can be found here]

You can catch up with our previous involvement in the campaign in this news item from May 2025: "Demanding a National Strategy"

Read about our youth services (provided by our youth practitioners, and emergency night shelter): Youth Services at Caring in Bristol