No Key — No Door? Young People’s Access to Housing

Abstract

A Minister for Housing recently described ‘the homeless’ as ‘the sort of people one stepped over on the way out of the opera’ (Sir George Young, in 1992), and thus confirmed that the current government’s emphasis on a return to ‘traditional values’ meant a return to Poor Law attitudes. As long as individuals are scape-goated for the problems of society, their ability to exercise their rights as citizens will be diminished, and they will be regarded as ‘the undeserving poor’. This chapter considers whether young people have the right not to be homeless, but to be recognised as independent citizens and to be housed. It also considers the responsibilities of parents in this context. How many young people get the key to any door at 18, these days? Is the concept of independent adulthood at 18 years, the legal age of majority in Britain, anything more than an irrelevant abstraction?