A Centrepoint study exposes the way high housing costs, low security and frozen wages have hit young people over the past 50 years
The number of young people pushed into homelessness has more than doubled in the last 50 years.
Youth homelessness charity Centrepoint investigated the changing relationship between young people and housing since the charity was founded in 1969.
It found that sofa-surfing-specific figures were even worse, having increased from 8 per cent of young people surveyed to 20 per cent.
Researchers polled 1600 UK adults from those who hit adulthood in the 1970s to young people today, reflecting the five generations of people who have passed through Centrepoint’s doors.
Centrepoint CEO Seyi Obakin said it has become “much, much more difficult for young people to leave home and live independently”.
Nearly half (46 per cent) of young people today who have left home went on to rent privately, almost double those now in their sixties who did the same when they first moved out (25 per cent).
