SHYPP, A local organisation which supports young people facing homelessness in Herefordshire, now knows how much of their budget will be cut by Herefordshire Council.

At Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet meeting, held on Thursday, March 17th, Councillors approved changes to SHYPP’s contract. The organisation’s accommodation-based support services will be remodelled with a proportion of it being funded through exempt rents. This should allow the existing service level to be maintained form April 1st onwards. There will be a three month transitional period from April 1st to June 30th 2016 to support this change.

However, SHYPP’s floating support service will be decommissioned. There will also be a 12 month transitional period from 1st April 2016 to 31st March 2017.

In order to support both of these transitional periods, the council will provide funding of £78,331.

SHYPP provides 16 - 25 year olds across Herefordshire with housing, training and employment opportunities. In Ross-on-Wye, the young residents of the Foyer, and the Young Person workers have generated a lot of local support for the charity, especially after they helped to organise the Pancake Races in February.

A spokesperson from SHYPP?told the Ross Gazette: “Before Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet meeting we presented our petition to Councillor Patricia Morgan with 2471 signatures. Young people turned out for a peaceful protest and to demonstrate their support for SHYPP. These young people handed out bunches of flowers to councillors asking them to ‘Help Herefordshire Young People to Bloom.’

“We have worked tirelessly with the local authority in an attempt to meet their budget pressures, which included a counter proposal that met what we believe is best for the young people we support. However, regrettably it is becoming clear that for some young people there is simply no money available to fund their support. In these instances we are obviously disappointed that the Council will need to decommission the floating support service SHYPP provides across the county, this also means an end to the council funding any preventative work that we do and support for services like Nightstop that use volunteer host families to provide a bed for a person in need.”