The ‘Nightstop’ model is simple. People who have a spare room in their house are trained to act as ‘hosts’ to homeless young people, offering them an evening meal, bed and breakfast. The young people are homeless, sometimes through a temporary break down of relationships with parents or through a combination of circumstances which leaves them with nowhere to sleep for the night.

A good friend told me about the scheme, which she’d heard about through trying to find accommodation for her teenage son’s friend who was sofa-surfing at the time. There was no such provision in Sussex – and would I like to help set it up?

The hosts are a whole bunch of different folk – some younger, some older, some with children of their own. All are incredibly positive about their experience and have great stories to tell. My favourite is about a young woman, who having already stayed with hosts whilst a place in a young person’s hostel was being sorted for her, arrived on the doorstep of a couple hosting for the very first time. They were apprehensive about getting it right for their first ‘Nightstopper’ and when they opened the door, their nervousness must have shown. Straightaway, the young woman said ‘Hi – I’m Nancy. Don’t worry – I’ll show you what to do!”

My involvement I’ve been Chair of the organisation since it was set up in 2009 and a couple of years ago my role was recognised through the University’s Staff Volunteering scheme. This gave me a great opportunity to talk about Nightstop with colleagues at work – including recruiting some new hosts! The way that we support the service provided by volunteer hosts to dovetail into the statutory, ‘professional’ services (education, social services, housing etc) is something that is key to our success – and for me, this reflects the type of civic and community partnerships the University of Brighton is rightly proud of and something I feel I can contribute to.

Making a difference It has taken time to establish the provision for young people and in some ways this has been our greatest challenge. Some of our initial supporters and stakeholders wanted us to establish an ‘up and running’ service immediately. But the process of recruiting, training and supporting hosts is not a fast one – and we have to get it right. But fundamentally, it’s a very simple model and people generally ‘get’ the idea behind it very quickly. In our first full year of operation, we provided 86 bed nights to homeless young people; last year this figure had risen to 769. A 900% increase over four years isn’t bad going!

Of course, the on-going challenges are the obvious ones. We need to continue to recruit and train more hosts to provide more bed-nights for more young people across more of Sussex ... which needs more money. But my experience is that generally speaking, people’s hearts are open and the enthusiasm of the hosts is infectious. And I feel I can make a difference too.

Mark Price, Assistant Head of School (Economic and Social Engagement) School of Education

http://www.sussexnightstop.org.uk/