Why akt's services are fundamental to the LGBTQ+ community (interview)

The Albert Kennedy Trust is the UK national LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity, set up in 1989 in Manchester. They support queer young people into safe homes and better futures, and have offices in London, Newcastle, Bristol and Manchester. 

We interviewed Matt Horwood to know more about akt and how we can all get involved. 

What are the typical steps for young LGBTQ+ people who need help and reach out to you?

Young people can either self-refer or be referred by someone else, which could be a friend, a social worker or another service they are accessing. 

An online referral form is completed, and then our Services team arranges to have an initial meeting with the young person to assess the case and how akt can support them.

How can an individual get involved and support akt?

In these uncertain times, we need your support more than ever to ensure we’re able to provide our essential services to queer young people who are facing homelessness, living in an abusive environment or fear for their safety at home.

Right now, the best way you can do that is by donating to support our work, or by throwing a lockdown fundraiser for us with your friends.

This could be a quiz, a personal challenge or something baking-related. You can check out a few of our ideas at www.akt.org.uk/lockdownfundraising.

Post-lockdown, we will be looking for event volunteers, hosts who have a spare room and can support a queer young person who needs somewhere to stay and more, so keep an eye out on our social channels.

What are the ways organisations can get involved?

At the moment, lockdown fundraising!

akt is so lucky to have the support of a wide range of organisations, who ​ fund our programmes through direct donations or fundraise for us to show their support wherever they can. This support comes in all shapes and sizes, but while in lockdown, financial support is a real priority to ensure we can keep doing what we do.

We’d love for you to do something with colleagues or your network group to help raise awareness for the work that we do.  If you are able to provide direct support through a corporate donation please contact [email protected].  

Another thing that’s incredibly useful for us is access to resources, that might not cost an organisation anything but would not usually be something akt could afford or access. 

For example, if you have a recording studio we could use for a project, or any spare ‘out of season’ products our young people could use.

Do you work with other charities, if yes which ones and how does your work complement one another?

Absolutely. 

We’re extremely lucky to have positive working relationships with youth charities, queer charities and homelessness charities across the UK and in other parts of the world. 

Knowledge-sharing and signal-boosting content and campaigns are two main ways that we often offer and receive support.

We also have referrals from other charities that come into our Services team, and vice versa, for example if one of our young people needs advice on sexual health, we might refer them into THT.

How many young LGBTQ+ people have you helped, and do you know how many you expect to help this year? 

Last year alone, we provided almost 6,000 bed nights to LGBTQ+ young people who needed our support and helped an additional 2,100 online.

During lockdown, we’ve seen a significant spike in the number of young people who’ve presented to us as street homeless. 

In the last two weeks, we’ve managed to find safe accommodation for 17 queer young people who were sleeping on the streets.

How has COVID-19 has impacted young LGBTQ+ people? Have you seen a surge in young LGBTQ+ people needing support and what do you think are the reasons behind this?

Yes – we’ve seen a high number of young people who’ve come to us because conditions at home have become unsafe or abusive.

Living in a home where you can’t be yourself, or where your identity is questioned or dismissed is hard enough for any queer young person. However, to then have to be indoors with the people putting you through that with no means of seeing friends or accessing community groups is even hard.

There’s a real increase in the strain on mental health. Also, we know it can heighten the risk of conflict or unprovoked attack. This is a serious concern for us, as lockdown does make it more difficult for young people to get out and access help or support.

In some cases, we know this has led to threats or the reality of being kicked out. 

How have you managed to continue to support young LGBTQ+ people throughout the lockdown?

We had to make sure we could provide adequate support to vulnerable people using virtual means, i.e. no face to face support.

This has meant utilising our live chat function, providing casework via video conferencing or email and ensuring that food deliveries were made safely to our Purple Door safe house.

Every individual story is different, but do you see recurrent factors for LGBTQ+ young people facing homelessness?

Most of the queer young people who present to us as homeless do so because they’ve been forced out of home, either because they’ve been kicked out or have left because they no longer feel safe.

In addition to this, queer young people experiencing homelessness are disproportionately impacted by a range of issues, in comparison to cis, straight peers who are homeless. These include sexual exploitation, mental health issues, increased risk of exposure to HIV, substance misuse and domestic violence. These form some of the wrap-around issues that a number of our young people come to us with, in addition to needing somewhere safe to stay.

What can society do to prevent these factors? 

akt is pushing for mandatory monitoring of sexual orientation and gender identity within housing and homelessness services. This will help understand the volume of queer people who need support and enable frontline workers to support needs of theirs that are specific to their identities as queer people. 

We need to look at prevention and what this means. How can we work with young people at the earliest stage, getting them into safe accommodation before they have to sofa surf, sleep rough or find other accommodation that’s equally unsafe for them to stay in. 

Do you work with schools or any organisations that help parents understand and accept their LGBTQ+ kids?

Occasionally we receive requests to give talks at schools, and where we can do this we will, but we’re an extremely small team that has to focus our efforts into direct services and support wherever we can.

There are other charities out there who don’t have service users they support, like Stonewall, who work with schools and parents around LGBT inclusion and do a good job of that.

Do your services include mediation between the young people you help and their parents? How do you make sure the communication is not broken?

Yes, sometimes.

We work with young people on a case by case basis, and during their initial assessment think about all options available.

Of course, reconciliation that results in a safe and loving environment at home is a great and ideal result, but sometimes it’s not possible and mediation has to be done extremely carefully. However, we have done it in the past and it’s been successful.

Could you tell us about a particular success story where akt has helped a young LGBTQ+ person in need?

Carmen is a 24-year old lesbian who came to akt after spending a week in an abandoned building. 

She’d also spent four nights on the streets in the winter, after being kicked out of her family home. Carmen came from a conservative family who had discovered her in bed with another woman. Her father made verbal and physical threats, throwing her out with a single bag of her things. 

Carmen met a stranger on the bus who knew about akt and referred her to the service. akt provided backpacker accommodation immediately for Carmen, who as a young woman was at high risk on the streets. While Carmen applied for universal credit, akt supported her with a weekly welfare payment. akt also contacted Carmen’s parents and mediated a chaperoned visit to collect the rest of her belongings and important documents. 

After three weeks of hostel accommodation, a room became available at akt’s Purple Door safe house. Carmen now feels safe and is looking forward to applying for university and finding work.