Nearly 1 million children faced destitution in the UK in 2022..

Many homeless people are those who were in care, turned out at 16 , often joined the military and finally end up homeless or in prison.
The care system which I knew well professionally washes their hands of too many young people too early .
Woukd we expect our own children to be fully independent at 16 or 18.? Probably not.

It's tragic, isn't it? Sixteen year olds are children, and shouldn't be left to their own devices. I know some of them are streetwise, but it must be so dangerous for them out there - I'm not surprised that many of them take drugs. How many people pour a glass when they get in from a day in the office - after a day on the streets I think I'd need more than that to get me to sleep.

Yes, it is shocking.
Our craft group is making quilts for care leavers - are some of these children just being sent out into the world with nothing but a gift from caring strangers?
I hope more is being done for them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48354692.amp

This study predates covid, so the government cannot blame that for what this researcher describes as: ""systematic immiseration [economic impoverishment]" of a significant part of the UK population, meaning they had continually put people further into poverty."

He concluded: "The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos."

He said the cause was the government's "ideological" decision to dismantle the social safety net.