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		*Dorothy Avenue* The Project at Dorothy Avenue opened on the 21st July 2004. Both Haddon Lodge (5 bed move-on flats), and Bay 6 (6 Emergency Units) have been practically full over the past 4 months, with young people in need of both their own flats and emergency accommodation. It's early days, but so far the project is proving a great success!

Homelessness

Youth homelessness: Up to 52,000 16 to 24-year-olds in England were revealed to be without housing last year in research by York University. The number includes 6,700 rough sleepers, teenagers placed in inappropriate bed and breakfast accommodation and young people sleeping on a succession of friends' sofas. Ministers have so far refused to produce official figures of youth homelessness, but the charity Centrepoint last year commissioned the Centre for Housing Policy at York University to assemble the evidence using the strict conditions used by local authorities to define homelessness.

Why are people homeless?

According to information collated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, more than one in three (36%) families accepted for re-housing by local authorities in England became homeless because their parents, relatives or friends were no longer willing or able to accommodate them. One in five (20%) became homeless because a relationship broke down, and about the same proportion were fleeing domestic violence. That's seven out of ten homeless families in trouble because of some kind of relationship failure. But that's only part of the story Most people end up staying with relatives and friends because they can't find accommodation in the first place and the relationship understandably breaks down because everyone is overcrowded, there is no privacy and tensions flare up. So the primary cause of homelessness is the chronic shortage of affordable housing. If we had enough housing then failing relationships would not, in most cases, need to result in homelessness.


	The S.L.EA.P. Staff Tim Grose (Project Manager) Kristen Parker (Youth Support Worker) & Ray Askew (Project Coordinator) slept out again on Saturday night 29th January, to raise awareness of the plight of young people..


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