Walking the streets on one of those shitty grey British days is a nasty experience. One wishes to get as quickly as possible from A to B without bothering to think about what one sees on the journey. Roadworks, too much traffic, beggars. Most of these things pass us by but ignoring beggars is bound to cause twinges of guilt in even the most hardened of blue nosed Tories. Nevertheless the majority of thoughts that spring to mind when one sees a young person begging in the street are usually an assortment of rationalisations as to why one should accept not doing so much as to lift a finger for the person.

It's the responsibility of the government, it's the responsibility of the council, there should be a charity that are looking after the person, they've got any one of a number of personality deficiencies, a lack of responsibility, no guts to stick things out, they just want short term hits, lazy, unhealthy, drugged up, alcoholic good for nothings, waste of money, too ill to be salvaged, not worth throwing your money away for. Can you seriously imagine that dirty animal holding down a flat or a job?

The fact is though, that young homeless people, most of them, have all started off from an extremely disadvantaged position in society. One can usually predict that the young person's predicament will have been caused by circumstances that are beyond that person's control. Recent Centrepoint research suggests that as many as 86% of young homeless people have been forced to leave home due to 'push factors' including violence, abuse, family breakdown and being thrown out. Research conducted by CHAR in 1992 found that as many as 40% of young homeless women had experienced sexual abuse in childhood. A survey of homeless young people in Scotland found that a quarter had a step parent compared to four per cent of all young Scottish people. And another group particularly at risk of homelessness due to family conflict are young people who are gay or lesbian. A significant proportion report being told to leave the family home when they reveal their sexuality. Yes, there are some very unsavoury types out on the street, but charm and manners are the luxury of the well off - not something that comes easily on the street.

But what does youth homeless actually mean? The term youth homelessness covers a number of different living situations. It includes young people living on the streets with no kind of shelter, but also those who have shelter, but nowhere they can call home - those sleeping in hostels or on friends' or relatives' floors. The most recent estimates of youth homelessness have ranged from 33,000 (16-21 year olds) to 246,000 (16-25 year olds). Because these figures are based on incomplete information and use different methodologies it is almost impossible to say which gives the most accurate insight into the scale of the problem.

Sgnificant is the finding that care leavers make up somewhere between a fifth and a half of the homeless population. Most children in care are forced to make their own way in life at the age of sixteen. They are expected to behave and take on the responsibility of adults and yet they are given none of the access to benefits and rights that adults get. They are effectively caught up in a no-man's land, they cannot rely on the state to care for them either as an adult, nor as a child. The background which forces most care leavers into care is more than likely to be a disadvantaged background, so that when they are ejected from care at the age of 16, they are not only put in the position of trying to build themselves a life with no money and no rights but they also have the added burden of having to bear the consequences of a disadvantaged background, of which the most important outcome is having a low educational achievement. Think about it. How easy is it to pass exams when home for you means being sexually and physically abused?

With disadvantage mounting up upon disadvantage it's quite easy for young people leaving care to lose the plot early on. Think about how sound you were at sixteen. Given no money, no care, no hope and no clue and yet the responsibility to look after yourself - how easy would it have been for you to stay on the tracks? So it's no surprise that many young people at this age find themselves unemployable, in poverty and with nowhere to live. This is how young people become homeless.

What is clear is that is that the problem has worsened considerably over the last 10 years. Experts and organisations working in the field have attributed much of this rise to the withdrawal of benefit entitlement from the majority of 16 and 17-year-olds. Increases in divorce and remarriage and in youth unemployment have also contributed.

Once a young person is homeless the problem can become interminable. Finding a job or claiming benefits is almost impossible. Being unemployed and homeless is a vicious circle that is difficult to break free from. Young people with no permanent address are unlikely to find and maintain full time work. Much of their energy is focused on solving their housing crisis. And this isn't some namby pamby excuse dreamt up by pinky left wing apologists. It's reality. People will not employ you if you do not have an address.

I met a young person in Sheffield the other evening. He was twenty years old and he had come to Sheffield from another city where he had been in care since a very young age. But getting a place in Sheffield was almost impossible for him. He told me that getting a place in Sheffield was almost impossible not only because young people were not considered a priority but because he had not been born in Sheffield so that had forced him even further down the list. He told me that a woman had approached him while he was begging and told him she had a room spare that he might like to rent. If he got the room he could then get benefits and he had likewise been approached by a man about a job which was his on the condition he got an address. The problem was that he needed another seven quid to make up the money he'd got from begging in order to pay the woman a deposit.

He looked at me. I looked away. I couldn't see anyone else around on that bleak evening. It was quite clear that seven pounds wasn't just going to appear in his hand before midnight. And it was more than possible that he was pulling the wool over my eyes. They're good at it you know, it's how they get by. This wasn't a very comfortable position to be in. Why should I have to solve the nation's homeless problem?

For more information on youth homelessness visit http://www.hoy2000.org.uk/