What does home mean to you?
This morning I attended another great LandAid event 'What does home mean?'
So many important points were raised by the speakers including the fact that youth homelessness is still on the rise and that so many more young people are suffering from mental health problems and going without an education. Imagine turning 16 and not being able to write and read and on top of that you've also become homeless?
Combating youth homelessness is so much more than just giving them a place to sleep, it's about educating them, integrating them into society, up-skilling them and much more. Which is why the work of organisations such as LandAid, Centrepoint, Fat Macy's and New Horizon Youth Centre is so important.
The event also got me thinking about my own experiences and what home means to me. For me it means safety; feeling secure. It means feeling comfortable and warm and free from any judgement, and if you’re lucky it also means having your family around you and I don’t just mean blood relations, friends and people whom you can trust and feel safe around, can also be considered family.
I have been at risk of becoming homeless before, including very recently. However, I am one of the lucky / privileged ones because I didn't get to that stage, for various reasons such as having a job and a support network around me, even if at times I believed I didn't have anyone, and in some ways I also had luck. It's not something that is easy to admit but I hope that by being open about this, it'll serve as a reminder that anyone can be at risk of becoming homeless at some point in their lives and that although it may be more common in certain circumstances, it can be much closer to home than you think.
Regardless of the reasons or circumstances, it shouldn’t happen to anyone. We should and need to unite to end it which is why I am proud to be a LandAid Ambassador and to work for a company that supports this great cause.
In the words of Paul Morrish, CEO at LandAid: "we cannot become habituated to homelessness, we can end it and we should".