Youth Housing Progress Report

As part of Clúíd’s new corporate strategy, Securing the Future 2023-2025, we have committed to investigating the possibility of providing a number of new tenures including age-friendly housing for young people. Work is well underway in this area. So far in 2023, we have hosted a consultation event with our colleagues in the housing and youth work sectors to get a sense of what is needed for Clúid to offer affordable, sustainable, youth housing.

We have also formally joined the Irish Coalition to End Youth Homelessness, a group seeking to consolidate the work of different organisations who are involved in the areas of youth and homelessness. Through our involvement with the Coalition, we have also been invited to participate in the Department of Housing’s Supported Housing for Youth (SHY) working group. This has given us an opportunity to offer our expertise to the Department in their ongoing work to develop this new tenure type for young people.

Clúid was also pleased to secure places for several colleagues to attend the International Social Housing Festival in Barcelona. Here staff engaged with sessions on how to involve young people in the design of housing services and securing property for use as Housing First for Youth. Particularly inspiring was a talk by Rocktrust and Almond Housing Association, a youth charity and an Approved Housing Body respectively, who have partnered to provide housing for young people in Scotland. Their model is one which may work well in the Irish context.

Internally, we have set-up a Youth Housing Working Group which brings together members of Clúid staff from different departments to discuss the challenges and opportunities provided by youth housing. This group is working on developing a pilot proposal which will allow us to gain vital practical experience and will hopefully serve as a model for us to offer youth housing at scale.