Plans to get young workers out of 'benefit trap'

A charity hopes a new initiative to keep young people in work and housing will help get them out of the "benefit trap".

The Live and Work scheme would mean young people in Gloucestershire who work or are apprentices will be offered tenancies in low-cost housing.

Andy Davis, strategic development officer at Gloucestershire Nightstop, said the charity wants to take on the initiative because "a lot of single bed accommodations are too expensive to live on the average wage for somebody 18 to 25".

Jean Templeton, CEO of St Basils, which implemented Live and Work in Birmingham a decade ago, said of the scheme: "The infrastructure is there if the will is there."

Nightstop offers emergency accommodation for homeless people between the ages of 16 and 25.

Davis said the charity is finding "there are not solutions for young people" to have somewhere they can afford to live while working, so "the main option" is for them to claim housing benefit to find somewhere to live.

"Once they're in that system for housing benefit, they can't work as many hours as they need to because they end up worse off," he said.

Gloucestershire Nightstop has entered a partnership with Chispa, Cheltenham Housing Aid Centre, and Cirencester Housing for Young People to bring the initiative to the county.

The partnership is being funded by Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales.

Davis said that in Birmingham, old NHS buildings have been used for the Live and Work accommodation.

He hopes the Gloucestershire initiative will be able to follow suit in repurposing disused buildings and enable young people to live in the area where they grew up.

In Birmingham, Templeton said there is no anti-social behaviour at the accommodation St Basils has because the young people are too busy working.

"They save up, the majority don't even want social housing afterwards, they've got choices," she said.

"It really, really explains what it means to young people to be believed in and to be safe and able to do the things that actually we all want them to do."

A meeting was held in Gloucester on Wednesday to discuss the need for the scheme in Gloucestershire.

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