Family breakdown is the leading cause of homelessness – but what does that really mean?

Dan Dumoulin, Director of Development and External Affairs, explores one of the most critical issues affecting youth homelessness.

When people ask me why young people become homeless, the simplest answer I can give them is family breakdown. Our data at Depaul UK reflects what Charities like Centrepoint and Action for Children have long estimated, that roughly two-thirds of young people in the UK leave home because of family conflict.

But family breakdown is a broad and complex term. It’s not just about difficult relationships, it’s about the pressures of poverty, culture, and social conditions that affect fragile family environments. With youth homelessness reaching alarming levels (118,000 young people reported themselves as homeless between April 2023 and March 2024), I’ve been keen to explore what family breakdown really looks like in 2025.

At a recent conference in Birmingham, with service staff who work every day with young people facing a night on the streets, I tried to dig deeper. In my role as Director of Development and External Affairs I wanted to understand the issues young people face today that make life at home harder to sustain than it was ten years ago, and to think about what steps charities and the government can do to prevent or reduce the likelihood of family breakdown in the future.

Challenges impacting young people

The discussion was wide ranging but broadly fell into four different themes. We acknowledged that often young people experience multiple stressors at once, creating a complex web of pressures that can easily overwhelm families with limited support.

We also noted that some groups are disproportionally more affected than others – the LGBTQ+ community, young people from black backgrounds and those with neurodiversity or mental health problems. And those young people who sit across more than one of these groups. For example, it affects young people like Sofia whose deeply religious family deemed her a threat to her younger siblings for being Trans; or Jack, whose relationship with his mum broke down when his mental health deteriorated after a family bereavement.

Here are the top five themes related to family breakdown and youth homelessness:

Economic pressures
Years of rising living costs, the impact of Covid, high rents, stagnant housing benefits, a shortage of affordable housing, and repeated cuts to local authority services have left many households struggling. Staff repeatedly raised one specific issue: the withdrawal of child benefit at 16, which can tip a family’s finances from fragile to untenable. Some parents also assume housing support is easier to access than it is, perhaps a hangover from a previous generation, leading to an expectation that young people should move out of home. Overcrowding and lack of space also came up repeatedly.
Psychosocial and identity-related factors
Many parents feel unequipped to support a child exploring their sexuality, managing neurodiverse traits, or coping with mental health difficulties. When misunderstanding meets shame or stigma, tensions can escalate quickly. Staff also described cases where cultural expectations, such as unquestioned obedience or the belief that emotional distress should be resolved through prayer alone, leave young people with little room to express their needs safely.
Family stressors
The loss of an elderly caregiver, a sudden trauma, or pressure within a blended family can destabilise the household. Sibling conflict escalating to physical violence can be the breaking point. Mental health issues, whether experienced by the young person or the parent, add further strain, particularly where support systems are thin.
Abuse and neglect
Domestic violence, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and ongoing neglect push young people out of homes, sometimes abruptly. A particularly vulnerable group includes young people known to Children’s Services but who fall outside the formal care system. They often reach 18 without entitlement to support or a safety net.

Talking with staff it’s clear from the young people they meet that family breakdown is complex and multifaceted. It starts in the family finances, in parenting pressures, in cultural expectations, and in how resilient families are to cope with life’s shocks. Charities and Government must address these issues to reduce the likelihood of family breakdown in the future and prevent the economic and societal costs of homelessness from happening in the first place.

Preventing youth homelessness through early support

At Depaul UK, we believe that every young person, whatever their background, should have the right to a safe place to live, the opportunity to reach their potential and the chance to positively contribute to their community, and we believe it makes good economic and social sense that government policies should support that too.

Lobbying for economic policies like raising the housing benefits in line with inflation, building more affordable homes, speedily implementing the Renters’ Reform Bill, to give private renters more rights and fairer deals, and making work pay for young people living in supported accommodation, are absolutely crucial to creating safe and stable housing, but what can we do beyond housing to help families stay together longer?

At Depaul UK we address the root causes of youth homelessness. We work directly with schools and community groups delivering workshops on themes such as conflict, relationships, and decision-making, so all children are better equipped with the skills and knowledge to navigate potential risks in the future. Our family support and mediation service, Reconnect, provides bespoke support to those at risk of family breakdown. But with tens of thousands of young people at risk each year, the need is far greater than any one organisation can meet alone.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what more charities, communities and Government should be doing to prevent homelessness caused by family breakdown.

Thanks to the Players of the People’s Postcode Lottery, we are supporting thousands of young people at risk of homelessness to build brighter futures.