New Horizon Youth Centre: Hotel 1824
Quick reactions from a group of philanthropic donors enabled a pilot project that has led to London’s first emergency homelessness accommodation specifically for young people.
Image credit: New Horizon Youth Centre.
Most of us are fortunate that we can take for granted having a home where we feel safe and comfortable. But for a growing number of young people in UK, this is sadly not the case. Youth homelessness has become a major problem, with figures showing that nearly 124,000 young people between the ages of 16-24 were homeless or at risk of homelessness in the UK in 2024/25: a rate of one in 60 young people across the entire country, and an increase of 6% from the previous year.
These challenges are particularly acute in London. The numbers of people sleeping rough in the capital rose to a record high of over 13,000 in 2025 – a rise of 10% from the previous year, and a staggering 63% up on the levels seen a decade earlier. Of particular concern to many organisations is that 11% of people rough sleeping in London are now under 25.
Historically one of the big challenges for young people who find themselves homeless is a lack of emergency accommodation and even when they can find it, this is very rarely tailored specifically to their needs – so they can’t necessarily get the support they need and may find themselves mixed in with adults and thus open to potentially unsafe situations.
As a charity working with young homeless people in London, New Horizon Youth Centre (NHYC) was already acutely aware of these issues. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 then brought further challenges, with the number of young people facing homelessness increasing dramatically (up by 48% from 2019). So, when the chance toblock lease a former 40-bed hotel in West London came up that year, NHYC and its partner - the homelessness charity Depaul UK - knew that it was a golden opportunity to do something innovative and potentially transformative; creating London’s first emergency accommodation catering exclusively to young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
To turn this vision into a reality, however, would require money. Lots of money. The Greater London Authority (GLA) and London Councils committed to give £300K each - the maximum possible at that point in their budget cycles - but that still left a gap of half a million pounds. It would be necessary to act quickly, too, since other parties were also interested in the property, and both the GLA and London Councils were about to enter a pre-election period, during which they would no longer be able grant any money.
This is where philanthropy came into its own. NHYC was quickly able to get in touch with some of the existing philanthropic funders with whom the organisation had a close relationship and explain both the situation and the urgency to them. As NHYC CEO Phil Kerry recalls, the response was swift and almost unanimous, with five out of the six funders he contacted agreeing almost immediately to contribute an average of £100K each towards the total required.
Image credit: New Horizon Youth Centre.
Thanks to the flexibility and speed of these funders the building was secured, and it opened as “Hotel 1824” in March 2021. Depaul UK brought its experience of running accommodation, whilst NHYC added its expertise in providing advice and support services. As a result, Hotel 1824 was able to offer a safe place for young people in London who found themselves facing homelessness, along with a whole range of support to help them get back on their feet.
The project originally ran as a pilot between March 2021 and May 2022, successfully helping 77 young people into long-term accommodation and ensuring that 98% of those who stayed never had face rough sleeping again. This success led to the creation of a new permanent youth-focussed emergency accommodation service in North London known as the Youth Hub. This is once again run in partnership with Depaul UK, but is now commissioned by the GLA as part of their strategy to reduce rough sleeping in the Capital.
The impact of Hotel 1824 and the Youth Hub is clear from the figures, but perhaps even more compelling are the individual stories. Take Aram, for example, who came to the UK as an asylum seeker from Iran, and found himself facing homelessness after he was forced to leave short-term Home Office housing. Aram was referred to NHYC by an advice organisation for LGBTQ young people; he ended up staying in the Youth Hub for a couple of months before moving on to longer-term supported housing with NHYC’s help. As well finding somewhere to live, Aram got vital help and support which enable him to find work as a Barista and to apply to university. When he came to the Youth Hub, he had previously applied to the University of Cambridge to read Natural Sciences, but narrowly failed to get his grades. However, NHYC were able to speak to the university and convince them to allow him to resit the necessary A levels (which they don’t normally do) as well as providing him with a grant to pay the cost of the exams. Thanks to this support, Aram got his grades and took up his place at Cambridge in September 2025.
Hotel 1824, and now the Youth Hub, have undoubtedly helped to change the lives of many of the young people who have passed through them. However, their capacity is only limited; and there remain many young people in London who find themselves facing homelessness and have nowhere to go. The hope is that now the model has been proven - thanks to a partnership between charities, local government and philanthropy - similar youth-focussed emergency accommodation could be opened elsewhere in London, and beyond – meaning that the lives of many more young people could be transformed.