EveryYouth calls on the Government to invest in the young people in rural England who are desperate to leave homelessness behind.

Tom*, 19, found himself sleeping in a makeshift hammock strung together using a tarpaulin in the days leading up to Christmas in a Devon woodland. “It felt a bit inhumane in a way, [like I was] going back thousands of years…hunting and picking berries so I wouldn’t be starving.”

Meanwhile Kayleigh, 29, was facing eviction. Her neighbour ran an extension cord into her flat when the landlord cut off the electricity. She lived like that for three months and then the bailiffs came knocking. “I was living in a room in my house with no gas and no electricity. I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t wash, I couldn’t cook,” she says.  

“It felt a bit inhumane in a way, like I was going back thousands of years…hunting and picking berries so I wouldn’t be starving.”

As thousands of families flock to Devon and Cornwall for picturesque summer holidays, it’s a different reality for local live-in youth homelessness service, the Amber Foundation. It’s at full capacity supporting people including Tom and Kayleigh and is one of 19 youth homelessness charities that make up the national EveryYouth Network. 

Latest Centrepoint data shows at least 688 young people presented to their local authorities as homeless in Devon in 2023-24, although the true number is likely a lot higher. Most young people supported by Amber struggle to secure work due to a lack of public transport, and are forced to move to nearby larger cities like Exeter. Fundraising and Communications Manager Rebecca Fry says: “Buses literally come once a week. It really caters for someone who wants to go to Barnstable for a trolley full of shopping and go home. It absolutely does not cater for anyone who needs to get to work. I don’t know anyone who has a full-time job and doesn’t have a car.” 

Kharris Davison, Service Manager, at the Amber Foundation in Devon, says local driving lessons cost around £43 an hour, which could be half a day’s wage for someone working part-time, or more than half the £72.90 weekly Jobseeker’s Allowance if you are under 25. She says: “We had someone going into a full-time job. She wouldn’t have been paid for the first four weeks but was paying £13 a day for her travel to Exeter, which is a huge distance. 

“We’ve got another young woman looking into a possible full-time cleaning job but the job advert stipulates, ‘please note due to location, you must be a driver’. Where the bus stops, it’s a good couple-mile walk to the establishment. She doesn’t drive but it’s the perfect job for her.” 

Each resident at Amber’s Ashley Court is offered a £150 bursary thanks to the EveryYouth Employed programme, which can be put towards gaining a driver’s licence. But youth homelessness is a problem that affects all rural England, with at least 19,379 young people who presented as homeless to a local authority classed as either ‘largely rural’ or ‘mainly rural’ in 2023-24.  That’s 16.4% of all young people who presented as homeless to their local authority in 2023-24.  

EveryYouth is calling on the Government to provide a nationwide transport bursary for young people experiencing homelessness in rural areas. The transport bursary can be included in the Government’s annual £1bn package to encourage people back into work, announced in March as part of drastic welfare reforms, or could be incorporated into the Government’s ‘Youth Guarantee’ scheme.  

It could be put towards similar schemes as the Horticulture Industry Scheme in Norfolk, where at least 447 young people presented as homeless in 2023-24. Workers are paid to carry out garden maintenance at different locations and young people living in supported accommodation provided by local EveryYouth charity, The Benjamin Foundation, are picked up and dropped off to their door as part of the scheme. The Benjamin Foundation’s Job Coach Joe Keeley says it has been hugely beneficial, and the scheme is set to be made available to more young people in Suffolk.  

“One young person had been struggling to keep a job down. With the help of this scheme, this young person has managed to maintain employment and a big part of that is the accessibility and how easy it is to get them to and from work,” he says. 

“Part of the challenge and difficulty we have in East Anglia is certainly around travel and getting to and from work.”

EveryYouth CEO Nicholas Connolly said: “Rural communities are not well served by public transport. It is infrequent, expensive and often unreliable. Young people often travel significant distances to attend college and get jobs so they can contribute to society.  

“If they cannot afford to travel or the service simply isn’t there; what are they supposed to do? Until the wider transportation system can be improved, young people need a transport bursary to remove the financial barrier of getting to interviews and work, at least until they get paid. As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall has already said, we don’t want to waste the talent of our young people who are desperate to work.” 

*Name has been changed.