Young care leaver facing homelessness was 'left to own devices'

Klarisse Smith had been in the care system for two years when she first started living in a homeless hostel in Birmingham at the age of 16. She had spent the time bouncing between her foster carer, her aunt, and her partner's family.

When I went to my auntie's house, I felt like my social worker just kind of washed her hands of me.

I didn't have much in common with anyone. They just left me to my own devices, and at the time I was just thinking this was pretty normal. According to new government statistics, the number of households in England with at least one young care leaver facing homelessness has increased by 37% in the last five years – more than double the increase for the general population. The results, according to the care charity Become, showed

complete failure in support for care leavers. According to a government spokesperson, the danger faced by care leavers was

unacceptableand that the company was makingrecord investmentin social and affordable housing.Being homeless kind of strips your energy away,

Klarisse, now 24, said. It eats at your self-worth and makes you feel like it's never going to change.

She recalls her social worker being on leave a lot and only seeing her at the hostel when she was waiting for her Universal Credit card. I had nothing to sustain me for the six weeks, she said. She gave me £50 a week and promised to withdraw the money.

Klarisse said that it was difficult to request help during those years.

If you're not the type of person who needs to constantly be nagging someone,

she said, you just get left under the system.You must be making the calls and emails all the time.

While Birmingham City Council said it could not comment on individual cases, it acknowledged the

significant difficulties

young care leavers like Klarisse faced when transitioning to independent living. According to a spokesperson, cover arrangements were

always in place to ensure that care was available when a social worker was unavailable, and that it was committed to ensuring care leavers had safe accommodation and the assistance they needed. Birmingham had retained a Care Leaver Pathway since January 2025 to assist 16 to 17-year-olds who were homeless or in care, as well as education and training, according to the Birmingham authorities.

Klarisse sat her A levels in another hostel. She earned a degree in social work and completed a scholarship program for clinical medicine at the University of Oxford this summer.

I went into social work because I had an understanding of the social care system,

she said. I'm a care leaver myself, and I find that I can relate to a lot of people, especially foster children. I can instill some confidence into them. It's rare breed of person to be a social worker,

she said, because doing things that may not seem important to others could mean

fully everythingto a child in the care system.You're a lot more sensitive when you're an infant," she said. So, for example, throwing their clothes in garbage bags would just be a way of transporting them. However, to a child, it seems that there's something they've done wrong to be treated like this. When they get out of jail, they treat prisoners the same.

According to new statistics from the Department of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (DCLG), there were 4,610 18 to 20-year-old care leaver households facing homelessness in 2024-25, up 37% from 2019-20. The number of people in the general population has risen by 14. 5% since 2019-20, to 330,410 in 2024-25. The data includes those who have been deemed homeless or in danger of being homeless by their local authority, as well as those who may have been given a relief or prevention job.

Clare Bracey, the company's director of strategy, advocacy, and liaison, cautioned that not all cases appear in official reports. Young people aren't reaching out for help, she said.

Our Homelessness Strategy will lay out bold steps to prevent homelessness and provide long-term solutions,

a DCLG spokesperson said, and our new Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will require public agencies to consider the assistance young people need when leaving care. The government is really excited about the bill, Ms Bracey said. To help them transition into independent living, local authorities will have to assist care leavers up to the age of 25.

We want to make sure that whatever that assistance goes to, that there is a broader definition of the service and that young people have a voice in what help they should get,

Ms Bracey said. "In order to effectively reduce homelessness and tackle housing waiting lists, councils need the ability and resources to build or buy more of the genuinely affordable homes our communities so desperately need. They estimated that there were currently 132,410 households living in temporary accommodation, costing councils £2. 8bn a year.