The New Horizon bus in King’s Cross

EVERY day, a busload of young Londoners are forced into homelessness – but the problem is slipping under the radar, a charity warned this week.

In the run-up to World Homeless Day on Monday, the Somers Town-based New Horizon Youth Centre, which has a day centre and does advocacy and outreach, has set up a bus in Granary Square, King’s Cross, in a bid to show the scale of the challenge.

Hannah, 22, was sleeping rough in north London for two years after the pandemic until she was finally granted a council flat with the help of New Horizon. She has now graduated from university.

She told the New Journal: “The biggest misconception is that young people facing homelessness have options, but they just don’t want them. That’s simply not the case. Some people might have more options than others but those options are very, very limited.”

Another problem is visibility, she said, and young homeless people often want to stay hidden to make sure others don’t know they are homeless.

“You could be sitting opposite someone on a bus and you see them with a suitcase and you think, ‘Oh, that person’s come back from holiday,’ but really that person has nowhere to go,” Hannah said.

One of the issues New Horizon is tackling is the lack of appropriate, youth-specific accommodation for homeless people in London. Hannah recalled the struggle of finding safe accommodation.

When she was staying at an emergency winter shelter she was told by the council that there was “nothing they could do” to progress her housing application because she had a roof over her head.

But she was sleeping in a bed with bed bugs and she “wasn’t comfortable” with the mixed-sex environment. When she left, she went “downhill” for quite a while.

“It was really hard,” Hannah said.

New Horizon sees more homeless young people now than before the pandemic.

Last year, it supported 1,221 people, a 19 per cent increase from 2019. New Horizon’s CEO Phil Kerry said “nobody” is talking about the issue.

He added: “I know there’s a lot going on in the world right now. But this is absolutely something people should be talking about. The scale is unknown. But the solutions aren’t. This is totally solvable. It just needs political focus.”

Inside the bus in Granary Square, people can learn about the facts, such as why young people become homeless, in the exhibition space downstairs.

On the top deck there’s an events space, where political figures, such as council leader Georgia Gould, and local businesses have attended.

Tomorrow (Friday), the bus will move to stand in between King’s Cross and St Pancras stations before touring around London on Monday.

* Hannah was speaking on condition of anonymity