Carla Ecola

ISLINGTON must fund LGBT housing for young people to support the many queer people who quickly become homeless when they turn 18.

Around 50 rough sleepers, volunteers, councillors and members of the Greater London Authority met at Islington Council’s office last Saturday for a day of talks on ending homelessness in north London.

Carla Ecola, co-founder of the LGBT homeless shelter the Outside Project, said on a panel talk discussing the mayor’s plan to end homelessness in the capital: “Islington used to fund LGBT housing for young people. It’s now commissioned to the causeway Irish Housing Association which is not LGBT accommodation and that’s a real shame. Because Stonewall Housing was doing amazing work in the borough for many many years. It’s a pioneering service, established in Islington that has been lost just in the last few years.”

They added the borough “doesn’t provide housing for queer people or any homelessness and housing services and that really needs to be changed in every single borough”.

Ian Swift, director of housing at Islington Council and a former social worker, said on the panel: “One of the issues is we have so many people made homeless on their 18th birthday. And what happens is when they’re 16 or 17 they kept going to social services saying their parents are homophobic or transphobic and they keep getting sent back again and again and again and it carries on and then on their 18th birthday they get kicked out.

“They’ve not got their leaving care rights, they’ve not got the support they would have got when they were 16 and 17, so we need to work as well with social services to make sure we’re not in that situation again.”

Mx Ecola said once a teenager has been let down before by social services, they’re not going to seek help from the council when they become homeless.

The panel for the meeting held at Islington Council’s office

“It’s not until a few years later when they’ve tried to live in various unsafe environments and a lot of trauma they come to us, a seriously underfunded service. Then we try and reconnect them with those services who have already let them down in the past and they’ll be let down again. They’ll say they’re not priority need, they don’t have a local connection.

“This is my personal experience. I just didn’t even try. I spent most of life either homeless or working in the homelessness sector, so I’ve seen it from every single angle. It’s not designed for us, it’s a systematic deprivation of resources.”

The government’s research in 2018, which was only published in September last year, found that 16 to 32 per cent of homeless service users identify as LGBT, a significant over-representation compared to the national average of 1.4 per cent. Mx Ecola said the funding does not match the need, with a “98 per cent shortfall”.

Sadiq Khan announced an ambitious plan to end homelessness for good in London by 2030 with a £10million investment. Mx Ecola said given the many LGBT people on the streets, their service would need £4million of the funding.

Mx Ecola added they would like to see queer housing that is “by and for led” included in the mayor’s plan.

They said: “We have people that move into mainstream homelessness services living quite stably and all of a sudden a new person moves in and they’re immediately at risk because of the current political, social, press, everything that’s going on in the world.

“You never know who your neighbours are, so by and for led services are really important for safety.”

Councillor John Woolf, executive member for homes and neighbourhoods, said: “In Islington we stand against any, and all, forms of injustice and inequality.

“I am proud that we are one of a limited number of housing organisations to have achieved accreditation from Stonewall, demonstrating that our housing services are safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people.”