Youth Access

London Housing Advice Strategy

17 January, 2005

The Greater London Authority (GLA) has reflected the needs of young people in its London Housing Advice Strategy thanks to evidence submitted by Youth Access and one of our members, Streetwise Community Law Centre.

The draft strategy that was issued for consultation in August 2004 had hardly mentioned young people at all. In Youth Access’ response we highlighted the fact that young people are far more likely to experience problems relating to homelessness and private renting than other age groups, but are far less likely to obtain advice on those problems.

We set out detailed evidence on young people’s housing tenure patterns, their needs for housing advice, their advice-seeking behaviour and how best to develop services to meet young people’s needs for housing advice. Streetwise complemented our submission by providing evidence of the type of housing cases they encounter and highlighting the importance of providing specialist legal advice to young people.

The GLA has now decided to incorporate much of this evidence into a section of the strategy devoted to young people’s needs and is due to launch its London Housing Advice Strategy on December 15th – go to www.london.gov.uk for further details about the GLA’s work.

Since the Homelessness Act 2002 was passed, local authorities have been obliged to ensure that the housing advice services provided in their area contribute to the overall strategic aim of preventing homelessness. Many authorities have been developing housing advice strategies to comply with this requirement. We would encourage young people and agencies providing advice to young people to find out what is happening locally.

Read Youth Access's full response in the Resources section of Members’ area.

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