More flats for young people facing homelessness

Action for Children is creating new training flats to help combat homelessness among young people in the island

Several new "training" flats are being built by two local charities for young people in Guernsey facing homelessness.

Action for Children and Maison Saint Pierre are building seven flats in St Peter Port in response to a 2022 report on the issue.

Aaron Davies, from Action for Children, said the project was "really important for young people because our training flats are constantly in demand".

The charities said five of the units would be used as training flats, to help teach young people facing homelessness how to live independently, with another reserved for emergency accommodation.

The final flat will be used as a training suite to teach young people living elsewhere basic life skills such as cooking, cleaning and budgeting.

The charities have received more than £200,000 of funding to help build the flats, which are expected to be ready for occupation by Easter 2025.

Action for Children currently runs seven training flats.

Mr Davies said it had been "a dream for a while for the service" to build more.

Mr Davies said it was "incredible" to have the facilities all on one site

Mr Davies said the service was seeing the same level of referrals over the past three years, but that the referrals were more complex.

"I think social and affordable housing is the problem and, until we can get spades in the ground, I think there is a pressure cooker on the system," he said.

Jim Roberts, chief executive of the Guernsey Community Foundation, which commissioned the report, said: "A young person has been given a training flat, they're ready to move on and they can't.

"And that speaks to a much larger problem about the lack of affordable accommodation on the island."