By: Jack Baker
To most Britons who grew up in the early 2000s, our knowledge of the care system comes from the Tracy Beaker franchise, with hit shows such as ‘The Story of Tracy Beaker’ and ‘The Dumping Ground’. These shows delved into the tumultuous lives of teenagers in the British care system, exploring many complex themes surrounding transitioning from a life in care to the adult world.
Although Tracy Beaker opened the eyes of a generation of kids – the problems she attempted to address exist to this day. Most notably in the huge proportion of care-leavers who end up on the street.
Youth homelessness comprises an increasing proportion of homeless people, and many of them are care-leavers: the number of homeless care-leavers aged 18-20 has risen 15 times faster than the overall number of homeless young people. Additionally, the care-leaver charity Becoming suggests that in 2024, 9.13% of 18-25 year-old care leavers are assessed as homeless, compared to 0.97% of 18-25 year-old non care-leavers in the same year.
Yet Sadiq Khan’s campaign promise to end rough sleeping by 2030 seems disinterested in tackling youth homelessness or reform to the care system. He says that his premiership would only be able to accomplish this goal by working hand-in-hand with a Labour government in Whitehall, which we got when Labour swept to power in July of last year. So why haven’t we seen the bold action against homelessness that we were promised?
It is obvious to anyone with even an ounce of empathy that this is abhorrent in a nation as wealthy as Britain. In a country that valorises meritocratic ascendance, why are our politicians allowing someone’s status at birth to determine their life chances? To understand this, we must examine more closely WHY care-leavers are more likely to end up on the street. And if Sadiq’s promise is ever to become reality, we must adequately address the problem of youth homelessness.
First on the agenda is the problem of the ‘local connection test’ that most councils impose as a condition for granting social housing. Only those with a local connection to that council area are able to qualify for such homes. The UK care system is (like most public services in this country) incredibly overburdened. As a result many are unable to remain in the same location for long periods of time, and are effectively penalised by the council housing system.
To their credit, the Labour government did pledge to enshrine exemptions for young care leavers (along with military veterans and domestic abuse victims), but there is still no timeframe for when this legislation will come into effect. If or when it does materialise, the charity Shelter warns that changing these rules does nothing to address the substantial shortage of social homes that we are facing. So even if care-leavers have better access to these homes, there still aren’t enough of them to go around.
In addition, care leavers face a variety of other unique challenges. Data from the Office for Students shows that there is a much lower progression rate to higher education amongst those who were in care for at least 12 months, in comparison to the general population. Furthermore, the rate of achieving first or upper-second class degree results was 12.1 percentage points lower for care-experienced students. This partially accounts for the large number of these individuals holding part-time, precarious, and poorly paid roles, which makes finding a home even harder.
Of course, reversing a trend like that is a herculean task, and needs a lot more than one policy. After all, building houses and enforcing legislation takes time. Despite this, there are policies that they can implement to make a tangible difference to the lives of care-leavers in the short term. One such example would be to decrease the so-called ‘care cliff’ that occurs when individuals who have gone their entire lives with state support, suddenly find themselves cut off when they turn 18. Many young people in the UK live with their parents for years after they become an adult, or find a safety-net in their ability to return home when they need to. This provides a strong foundation to allow them to focus on their studies and settle into life at university, which care-leavers often lack.
Furthermore, the government should increase the higher education bursary from care people to match the level (£9,000) given in Scotland. The current £2,000 that is given is simply not enough to make a difference in today’s cost-of-living crisis. More cash means care-leavers will be better able to find good-quality accommodation, and thus encourage many more to pursue a university degree.
There has, however, been promising changes at a local level, such as the Staying Put scheme. This scheme says that it is up to local councils to fund and support care-leavers to be able to stay with their foster families after they turn 18. By committing to fully-fund and expand this scheme, Become suggests that the government would be able to help ease care-leavers into adult life in a similar way that non-care kids get to. Doing so would increase the ability of care-leavers to stay in education or training, getting better jobs and thus avoid the pitfalls of the housing market.
These policies, alongside a concerted effort of social and non-social housebuilding, are the only actionable ways in which Sadiq and the Labour government will be able to meet their housing and homelessness targets. Data indicates that Labour are right to think that more houses means lower rents, but their lack of proper commitment to improve policies for care leavers shows an ambivalence to the group of young people most likely to end up on the streets.
Those leaving care have had exceptionally hard lives – particularly in their early years – that many of us cannot even begin to imagine. I’m sure that if Tracy Beaker was with us today, it’s easy to think that she would be calling on the government to do better.
In an age where politicians are glorifying their ideal of meritocracy, spewing nonsense that the vulnerable should just work harder, shouldn’t they focus on first levelling the playing field? In the 100 metre sprint that is contemporary British society, how can we expect future generations to compete when some have a five second head start?
