As the cost of food, energy and housing soar, while incomes stagnate, many will struggle over the coming months. We’ve put together a series of guides to help you access the essentials.
akt’s calls to action to help young lgbtq+ people during the cost of living crisis:
1. a national lgbtq+ youth homelessness strategy needs to be implemented:
This would be an intergovernmental means of addressing the additional barriers that people from LGBTQ+ communities, people of colour, disabled people, and migrants face, on top of addressing the issues around housing provision in the UK.
By providing a framework for young LGBTQ+ people to access housing and homelessness services, the government would be preventing lifetimes of homelessness. Policy makers also need to improve the monitoring of gender identity and sexuality in housing and homelessness services so that national policy is responsive to the needs of LGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness.
2. we need housing benefits to rise in line with inflation:
From the 6th April this year, families claiming housing benefits saw the personal allowance linked to the payment rise by 3.1%; whereas the ONS reports that housing costs rose by 8.6% in the 12 months to August 2022. The phrase ‘cost of living’ is so frequently heard at the moment because people are unable to afford to live without worrying about how to stay in their homes.
3. finally, we need a temporary ban on evictions:
We saw a temporary ban on evictions work during the coronavirus lockdowns – we’d like to see them re-instated now.
Woman looking down with the trans pride colours in the background.
guides to help you get through the cost of living crisis:
We’re now launching a cost of living services campaign to help point young people across the country in the direction of services, resources, and organisations that will be able to help them.
Like most services charities, we are almost constantly at capacity when it comes to the caseload of our services team, and our research has shown that less than half (44%) of LGBTQ+ young people were aware of housing support services the last time they experienced homelessness.