English local authorities unlawfully refusing help to homeless young people, charity claims

Hundreds of homeless young people, including many who are pregnant or have children, are being unlawfully turned away by councils when they ask for help, homelessness charity Centrepoint has claimed.

The charity said that its helpline operators had recorded 564 instances of “gatekeeping” by council officials over the last 18 months and reported that more than one homeless young person a day contacts the charity for support after being wrongly refused support by a local authority.

Centrepoint suggested that more than a third of those who reached out for help weren’t even assessed, let alone supported. Examples cited by Centrepoint included young people:

• Wrongly considered to have no local connection
• Wrongly considered to be intentionally homeless
• Wrongly considered not to be a priority need.

Paul Brocklehurst, Centrepoint's Senior Helpline Manager says “More than 1 in 10 calls to the Centrepoint Helpline is now a case of “Gatekeeping”.  In 82 of the 564 recorded cases (14.5%) the applicant had children or were pregnant at the time of contacting the helpline. There were also 100 cases of young people who could not contact their local council for reasons including phone lines being switched off, out-of-hours services operating via voicemail only, and contact numbers not being listed online.

“One young person in London was deemed to be intentionally homeless, despite them having experienced domestic abuse which caused them to flee their home. Cases like this are all too common,” Brocklehurst said.

“Helpline staff are now having to spend more time advocating for and on behalf of young people to local authorities, encouraging them to provide homelessness assessments and temporary accommodation when needed but unfortunately this is not always successful.

The latest statutory homelessness figures released by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) found that the number of young people owed homelessness support from their local council has increased by over 3,500 (6.5%) in the last year. Between April 2023 and March 2024, 58,870 16-24-year-olds in danger of homelessness were owed a prevention or relief duty.

Centrepoint said that the true scale of youth homelessness is much broader, with 119,300 young people in England said to have presented themselves as homeless or at risk of homelessness to their council between 2022 and 2023.

Paul Brocklehurst said: “The blame can’t just lie with councils though – decades of chronic underfunding from central government have forced many to make impossible decisions around who gets what support. The new government must urgently address this to put us truly on the way to ending homelessness for good.”

Harry Rodd