Tiya, Fee and Antonio are doing the Sleep Out Challenge in London, we shall be spending the whole night of 8th November behind Liverpool Street Station.

We hate the cold, love our warm beds and food and cannot believe there are 80,000 young people on the streets sleeping rough in the UK.  There are too many vulnerable people out there that need our support.  Centrepoint do some great work in reaching out with the right support and resources for these young people.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Some hard truths:

• 69,460 children (or expected children) are living in homeless households – three quarters of the total accepted
• An increase of 44% in households who are homeless after repossession to 1,520. But this is still a relatively small part of the whole. The biggest proportion, 20%, are those who can no longer stay with a friend or a relative.
• In the last three months of 2011, 12,830 households were accepted as homeless, up 18% on the same period the previous year
• Increasingly, people are being put up in bed and breakfast accommodation – which is up 37% on the previous year after years of declines
• Decrease in the use of accommodation leased by the private sector to local authorities, by 6% from 27,730 to 26,080 households. In fact, 8,540 households are homeless because their short lease came to an end, up 39% on 2010