The climate this year has been stormy, especially so for young people affected by homelessness. In one of the richest cities in the world, we have seen a dramatic increase in young people coming to us for support – meaning we have supported more young people than ever and seen our busiest days at the centre.
The storms we have weathered include: young people becoming exempt from supported accommodation across the capital due to regulation changes, where so many of our young people find their first a stable home after homelessness; thousands of refugees becoming homeless after receiving their status to stay in the UK; an appalling rental crisis where people are being asked for huge deposits and insane rents for the smallest of rooms; and the cost of living crisis continuing to get worse and worse.
At New Horizon we continue to help young people to weather these storms and come out the other side able to find a safe, stable home for their potential. We feel the impact of the storms, but we also see solutions and what happens when things do go right.
For example, working with people like Chloe, aged 25, who show just how special our service is:
Thank you for all you have done. You have made me feel so welcome and safe. I never thought I would be able to achieve some of the things I have achieved and it’s with the help of you guys that I have. I wouldn’t be who I am without any of you.
You are all inspiring, doing what you do everyday for young people who come to New Horizon.
And M, aged 20 from Syria, who values having specialist housing support surrounded by friendly, supportive youth workers:
I had a good feeling when I came to New Horizon, everyone was nice, and I’ve made new friends.
New Horizon is helping me find a home so that I can go on to study at University, get a job, earn money and see my Mum and family again.
In total in 2023-2024 we worked with almost 1,500 young people and had over 10,000 visits to our day centre in Camden.
We supported 210 young people into long term housing, and 357 into short term or emergency housing. For young people, this is life changing; they get the stability they need to start building their potential.
New Horizon helped me fix my situation. I’m off the streets so I’m not sleeping rough. It stops my mind thinking strange, and I can move forward. They’ve helped me stay clean, and get referrals when other places were not helping me. So I appreciate New Horizon a lot. – R, aged 22
We also had a brilliant year of partnerships, such as The Ten Thousand Daffodil project which raised over £75,000 for our work and NH 10 Days to Take Charge of Change where local businesses like Google and The Guardian took our young people to their offices for eye-opening workshops.
The London Youth Gateway, 7 organisations working in partnership to better provide local and tailored services for young people, went from strength to strength with New Horizon as the lead partner. Last year it supported almost 4,000 young Londoners to get the housing and holistic support they need.
The backdrop of homelessness in London continues to be stark, and without systemic change we will continue to see storm after storm affecting our young people. That is why we have been campaigning hard for the Government to take notice of young people and create a strategy to end youth homelessness. Our bold campaign #PlanForThe136k has 140 organisations on board and led to a petition with 15,000 signatures, debates in parliament and the Government committing to creating a strategy to end homelessness. We are continuing to campaign to make sure young people feature as a key part of the strategy.
Back in the day centre, our innovative youth work, health and life skills support continues alongside our housing support to enable young people to have what they deserve – a safe and stable home, access to jobs, education and training and, importantly, somewhere to have fun and make friends.
To find out how our teams continued to deliver brilliant services, our partnerships bore fruits and our campaigns pushed boundaries, read our Impact Report 2022-2023: Weathering The Storm
Every donation we receive enables us to continue the unique and invaluable work to end youth homelessness in London. Help us provide young Londoners with the support they need to give their potential a home.
