Special Report:Romford YMCA waiting list triples since covid pandemic.

One staff member who was supporting young people look for a job was told by the employer ‘I would rather leave the post vacant that have one of your residents apply’.

The pressures placed on the YMCA across the country since the covid pandemic broke out have been quite remarkable. Here in Romford, our YMCA currently holds a waiting list that fluctuates between 50-100 people and receives an average of 57 new applications for the hostel each month.

Earlier in the month, the Havering Daily was invited to visit the Romford YMCA to chat with staff members about the ongoing pressures they face. We met Emily Fuller, Head of Housing for Romford and Brentwood, Richard Bellis, Director of Housing,Lydia Terry, Resident Engagement officer, Ian Luck, Masterplan Engagement Lead and CEO Matt Jones.

The staff spoke openly about the fantastic work they are doing in the YMCA and with the community at large. They also spoke about their future plans to have a complete new rebuild to help further their work as a charity looking after those in need and to help Havering Council meet their ongoing demands. The pressures they have come under to meet these demands have grown hugely since the covid pandemic broke several years ago.

Back in March 2021, YMCA England and Wales released a report exploring the barriers young people in supported accommodation face when trying to move on to independent living, and it’s all still really relevant. The report, Impossible Homes, focuses on the journey of young people leaving supported accommodation and the financial and social barriers that they face. 

This research tracked people who was in YMCA accommodation across England and Wales in 2018 and caught up with them in 2020 to see if they managed to move on, how they did it and what the key barriers were. Discussion forums with YMCA housing providers and young people were held to establish the key solutions to what would help those most. Some of the key findings were:

• Building savings is near-impossible 
• Working can make it harder to save 
• Private renting is seen as unaffordable and unstable 
• A lack of available social housing  
• Support from families is what most people relied on, but many do not have this 
• The strain added by the pandemic 

The report underpinned an accompanying campaign and influencing work which challenged the government on some of the key solutions that would make a difference. This covered a range of things such as improving the Homes England move on fund to reforming benefits to making it clearer to local authorities the support they have to provide. Yet, here we are in 2024 with young people still facing the same issues.

So much so, that they have carried on this work through a Manifesto, launched at the start of the year. This Manifesto is now being broken down into “campaigns” that YMCA England and Wales ask local Ys to support – these campaigns take one of the topic areas and focus on it for the month. April has been focused on the cost of living – other reports can be found here https://www.ymca.org.uk/about/publications

The staff in Romford are very dedicated to their job and face endless challenges daily. One staff member who was supporting young people to move on to independent living, was told by a landlord: ” I would rather leave the flat empty than have one of your residents live here”, thanks to the perception of those receiving benefits.

 Romford redevelopment

The team are hopeful that they can plan towards a redevelopment of the building. If you would like to see more information on this, please see the link below.

 ymcatg.org/romford-redevelopment/.

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