15 minutes with… Seyi Obakin, chief executive at Centrepoint

Insight16.09.217.00 AM by Lucie Heath

Seyi Obakin has been the chief executive of youth homelessness charity Centrepoint for more than a decade. Lucie Heath catches up with him to discuss the pandemic, policy and how modular construction can play an important role in ending homelessness among young people

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.@luciemheath spends 15 minutes with @centrepointuk CEO Seyi Obakin to discuss the pandemic, policy and how modular construction can help end homelessness among young people #UKhousing

What impact has the pandemic had on youth homelessness?

The pandemic has affected youth homelessness in four ways. First is the question of home. At Centrepoint we’ve seen a third more calls to our helpline from young people asking for help because they don’t have a place to live.

At the same time, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of young people, particularly during lockdowns.

And the third impact is on young people who have been homeless and are in homelessness settings where we are telling them, and they are accepting, that their route out of homelessness is to get a job. We haven’t been able to actually give them as much of that skills and employability work that we would have done [before the pandemic].

Finally, on the employment front, I think the pandemic has affected young people disproportionately. We know, for example, from callers to our helpline, that there has been an 11% increase in the number of people who are calling and finding that they are out of work.

What is currently the largest barrier to ending youth homelessness?

I feel we have to find a way to stop the flow of young people who are becoming homeless every year. That means that we have to invest some energy in preventing them from becoming homeless in the first place.

We know, for example, that 120,000 young people last year approached local authorities across the country asking for help because they’re homeless; 120,000 young people fills Wembley Stadium [nearly] one-and-a-half times over.

That means we need a strategic view from government in which they make youth homelessness a strategic priority across government departments.

Whatever their income is, they pay roughly a third of that income on rent and that means that whatever job they do, whatever career they wish to pursue over the five-year period they have in Independent Living, they will be able to focus on building their career and being successful in it without worrying about housing costs.

Why is modular construction such a key part of the programme?

Modular enables us to use land that we don’t own on a temporary basis. It means we can put it on meanwhile-use land and then move it on from that land when the time comes for us to hand it back.

The second thing is that these modular buildings are now a long way away from where modular buildings were 20 to 30 years ago. They’re really good buildings now and they can be constructed very, very quickly. So the time between starting the programme and handing over to a young person can really be compacted.

What more would you like to see the housing sector do to prevent youth homelessness?

I would like to see the housing sector invest more energy in preventing youth homelessness from happening in the first place and that means that the sector needs to work with families beyond just providing housing for them and needs to work in mediation, for example, to stop families splitting apart and causing homelessness.

The second thing I think we need to do would be if you think about the sort of properties that are developed now, they’re focused mostly on families and that’s a good thing, but that singular focus on families leaves young people out of the equation altogether.

So I’d like to see the sector think a bit more widely about what sort of properties we need to be developing for young people.