Housing and homelessness
Care-Experienced adults are more than twice as likely to have experienced homelessness than the general population (Independent Care Review, 2020 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ).
7% of homeless applications are made from adults who have been previously looked-after adults (Scottish Government, 2018).
A problem with the current system is that young people leaving care sometimes must declare themselves homeless in order to access supports. This could mean they are living in a foster home but are approaching 21 and must jump into the homeless system. However, significant improvements are being made to give Care-Experienced people their own system to avoid the homeless support system.
In the video, Lee talks about her experience of homelessness while at school.
Transcript
When I was fifteen, I was sitting my Standard Grades, but at that time I was living homeless in the streets, and I was sitting my Standard Grades when I was sleeping at the beach, and then I was going school, getting washed in the river in the morning. I managed to get seven Standard Grades out of the eight, the only one that I kind of missed is an important one, which is obviously my maths.
After my Standard Grades, I did try to gain some semblance of a life and I actually applied to university at eighteen, but life was really about survival at that point, and between going back into the homeless system and attempting suicide, I just wasn’t in the proper place for it. So, it didn’t matter that I had been accepted, I just wasn’t able to emotionally support myself to be able to attend university at that time.
Those attending school, college or university may reside in a variety of settings, such as foster care, with their birth family, in a residential setting but also sometimes in homeless accommodation. University halls of residence can be a lifeline for Care-Experienced people, especially those with experience of homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless. Some Care-Experienced students require accommodation outside of term time as their alternative would be homeless accommodation.
Jayde experienced homelessness while at university. Here she describes how she got support to move into student halls.
Transcript
So, I didn’t understand my care experience until very recently, until about third year of uni. It got to a point where I was homeless and I was sleeping in my car, and just here, there, and everywhere. And I was just open about my experiences of not really having anywhere to go, and that’s when I met somebody at uni that said “why can’t you live at home?” and “have you ever had social work involvement?” and that’s when it actually came to be apparent. So, I actually never self-disclosed ad being care experienced. I got signposted to the wellbeing team, the Care Experience Officer, I think she’s also part of the Corporate Parenting team, and she really helped me and managed to secure me a place in halls, pretty, basically, instantly.
Leaving school