New campaign aims to give young homeless people the first step out of homelessness
Thursday 29 April– LandAid, the property industry charity, has today launched First Step, a new appeal to fund eight key emergency accommodation projects across England. The campaign will mark LandAid’s first step in its ambition to create 1,000 homes for young people facing homelessness and be delivering £1m of pro bono each year by 2024.
The campaign is supported by founding partners Carter Jonas, Grainger, Knight Frank and Streetsmart.
LandAid’s mission to end youth homelessness has become even more vital over the last year as youth homelessness has risen sharply. Calls to national youth homelessness helplines indicate that there has been a 33% increase in the number of young people experiencing homelessness this year, compared with last.* With a chronic lack of emergency accommodation for young people, the First Step appeal is critical.
Over the last four years, LandAid has focused its mission on youth homelessness and created over 450 homes and through its Covid-19 Emergency Fund, given out over £1m in funding to help support charities through the pandemic. This experience has enabled LandAid to create an ambitious strategy for the next three-years which focuses on providing accommodation for young people facing homelessness, increasing the value of its pro bono programme and measuring the social value of industry more effectively. Read LandAid’s full three-year strategy here.
Paul Morrish, Chief Executive, LandAid says: ‘LandAid is proud to kick of its new strategy with the First Step appeal. We know that youth homelessness has risen this year and we know that there is a lack of emergency accommodation for young people, which means that many are unable to take their first step out of homelessness when they need to. This campaign will begin to solve that by funding key accommodation projects across England. But LandAid will not fulfill its mission through just fundraising, we also need the support of the industry to deliver our pro bono ambitions to be delivering £1m a year by 2024. Together, we can end youth homelessness.’
Find out more about First Step here