Government data underestimates LGBTQ+ homelessness, failing to capture its breadth and complexity, writes Adam Pemberton Wickham, chief executive of charity Akt, as part of the Reset Homelessness campaign being run jointly by Homeless Link and Inside Housing.
You might know it, but there is a growing crisis of homelessness impacting LGBTQ+ young people.
At Akt, the only national LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity, we estimate that there could be as many as 30,000 young people who identify as LGBTQ+ seeking help every year.
But you won’t find that crisis reflected anywhere in ‘official’ homelessness data – or the funding that is based on it. If it did show up in the numbers, then there would be a chance that the funding system would reflect what is a simple but powerful truth: everyone is not at equal risk of homelessness.
Last year, Akt commissioned the universities of Kent, Bristol and Southampton to conduct the first ever in-depth research into LGBTQ+ young people’s experience of homelessness. Our report, There’s No Place Like Home, was published in March. Here are some of its conclusions.
LGBTQ+ people are twice as likely to experience hidden homelessness (eg sofa-surfing, squatting) as non-LGBTQ+ individuals. LGBTQ+ people from racialised communities face a 50% higher risk.
More than one in four of the young people Akt surveyed had previously experienced homelessness, with the majority experiencing hidden homelessness.
Many young people experiencing LGBTQ+ homelessness have also experienced familial domestic abuse. However, they are not always considered for priority status in housing applications, as the abuse can be difficult to evidence or authorities have not considered LGBTQ+ domestic abuse in their assessment.
Few housing services cater specifically to LGBTQ+ young people, while mainstream services lack knowledge and prioritisation.
Intersectionality worsens homelessness for young trans and non-binary people, as transphobia and compounding vulnerabilities exacerbate their challenges.
The government does not provide the granular data that would allow us to understand the scale of experiences of homelessness among young LGBTQ+ people
Government data underestimates LGBTQ+ homelessness, failing to capture its breadth and complexity.
The last point here is absolutely crucial. The government does not provide the granular data that would allow us to understand the scale of experiences of homelessness among young LGBTQ+ people. But if you don’t count it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Akt and other organisations are working harder than ever to support LGBTQ+ young people and we will continue to do the best we can. But, until we get better data, the system as a whole will continue to fail to support this group of young people effectively.
With ever-growing numbers of young people identifying as LGBTQ+, this isn’t an issue that will go away, and it has the potential to get worse. So, in There’s No Place Like Home, we ask the government to fund a drive for better and more robust data-collection of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersectional data, and to make that data transparent and publicly available. Once that happens, we can get LGBTQ+ young people’s needs reflected in the funding system, too.
Once we’ve got a sense of the true scale of the challenge, the next stage is to recognise that young people – especially LGBTQ+ young people – experience homelessness differently, so the solutions are different too.
Young people are being kicked out for coming out, sometimes finding themselves on the streets suddenly, rejected by the very people they trusted would always show them love and support.
Or, once having shared their identity with family, friends and their community, they are struggling to live in an environment which is uncomfortable or actively hostile towards them.
Young people – especially LGBTQ+ young people – experience homelessness differently, so the solutions are different too”
When this happens, they need flexible, easy to access and high-quality services nationwide that are sensitively tailored to their individual needs. All organisations involved in housing and supporting young people need to recognise the unique needs of this group and think deeply about how they could do better for the LGBTQ+ young people they serve.
Everyone working with these young people needs to better understand and respond to the intersectionality that impacts upon their lives.
And there are specific changes to law and policy – especially around liaison with experts and providing referral information – that are urgently needed to help bring these improvements about. There’s No Place Like Home contains detailed recommendations for change to make all of this happen.
There have been great advances in LGBTQ+ equality in the past 30 years, but recent events have shown that those gains are not universal. Too often, they are met with, at best, a lack of understanding, and often with rejection, even hatred. And it is very possible to go backwards.
We need to recognise that the job is far from done. Akt won’t rest until every young LGBTQ+ person has a safe and secure place to call home, with the support they need to go on and thrive as happy and successful adults. It’s been Akt’s mission for the past 35 years and we are not going to stop now.
Adam Pemberton Wickham, chief executive, Akt