Routes to Roofs
Improving housing pathways for young people leaving care
Routes to Roofs is a project focused on improving housing pathways for young people leaving care. It brings together partners across Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and young people with lived experience to develop, test and refine solutions to the challenges they face.
Why this matters
When it's time for young people to leave care, it can often feel like they’re facing a cliff edge where support suddenly drops off. One thing that can be particularly challenging is finding safe, comfortable housing. Young people leaving care are less likely to have options to live with family or someone to act as a guarantor for private rental, and this, combined with the impact of their trauma, can make things difficult.
Through our Staying Close, Staying Connected service, which we are piloting ahead of it becoming a statutory duty for local authorities in 2028, we are already working to address this challenge. However, pathways out of the service have become more difficult. There's been a decrease in the availability of social housing, and even when a young person does find somewhere, it still adds another move in their journey – creating anxiety and potential re-traumatisation.
What we're doing
Through Routes to Roofs, we are working in partnership to develop housing pathways that are responsive to young people’s needs, offering housing security and agency in their life.
Our ambition is that the learning from Routes to Roofs, alongside our project on Disability Leaving Care Pathways, will help ensure the roll-out of Staying Close is as inclusive and successful as possible, accompanying the legislation change and improving the journey from care to greater independence for care leavers nationally.
What's going to happen when?
November 2025 – March 2026
During this time, we mapped out project partners and established our co-production approach
March – July 2026
We are establishing expert working groups with project partners and young people; this group will develop a shortlist of potential new approaches
July – October 2026
We will consider the feasibility of each idea and choose which ones to take forward
October – December 2026
We will create project plans and decide how they will be evaluated
December 2026 – April 2028
We will deliver project plans and evaluate their effectiveness and impact
May 2028
We will hold a learning summit event and start planning what’s next
Get in touch
If you'd like to learn more about the project or are interested in getting involved, please get in touch with Steve Hulme at stephen.hulme@break-charity.org.