We campaigned for the Independent Care Review to include key recommendations on homelessness and housing for care experienced young people.
In May 2022 the Independent Review on Children’s Social Care published a report recommending wide-ranging reforms to children’s social care. As part of the Review process, we submitted several consultation responses including our Case for Change submission in August 2021, a response from young people we work with and a Call for Ideas submission in December 2021. All the submissions were informed by our advocacy and legal casework, our child rights expertise, and our direct participation work with young people with lived experience.
We submitted three key housing ideas, focusing in particular on solutions in relation to issues around homelessness and housing for care experienced children:
- Priority need should be extended to include all care leavers under the age of 25.
- The test of intentional homelessness should be removed for all care leavers, up to the age of 25.
- All care leavers should have the highest priority for social housing in all local authorities, particularly when placed out-of-area as a child.
The Government response and social care strategy - ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’
In February 2023, the Government published their response to the review and we were delighted that they agreed to implement two of the recommendations that we have been campaigning for - to remove the intentionally homeless test for care leavers through legislation or statutory guidance and the local area connection test and strengthen access to social housing for care leavers.
We are continuing to work with the Government to strengthen these commitments through legislation to ensure that care leavers are not subjected to a postcode lottery in accessing support from housing services. Read our response to the Government’s strategy here.