A Bradford charity providing emergency shelter for homeless young people says referrals for its help have risen by more than 80 per cent since last year.

Bradford Nightstop’s project worker Corine Campbell is blaming the steep rise on recent benefit changes.

She said: “Changes affecting housing benefit have been introduced which have put enormous pressure on families and this has led to an increase in the number of young people becoming homeless – our referrals are up 84.8 per cent compared to last year.”

Referrals rose from 359 to 503 in 2012-2013 with 435 of those given a bed.

For the past 19 years, Nightstop has been working with volunteers who open their homes on a one-night basis to offer a bed and comfort to those who otherwise would not have a roof over their head.

Now, thanks to Big Lottery funding, the charity is extending its service to give longer stays for a young person who might need several nights’ accommodation until they are able to return home or make more permanent arrangements.

“We know that temporary supported housing and hostels are sometimes unable to take young people whose benefits are not in place and these can take some time to process,” said Ms Campbell.

And she said young people having to be re-referred every day to them and usually not staying with the same host was just “an additional stress for an already vulnerable young person”.

Nightstop has been awarded £229,937 over five years from the Big Lottery Fund’s Reaching Communities programme and part of that money will go towards the new Nightstop+ scheme. It now needs to recruit more people with a spare room to help make it happen.

“The host would not be responsible for the young person during the day time it would be more of a bed and breakfast type of arrangement,” added Ms Campbell.

Volunteer hosts will be paid a small fee, given training and have access to a 24-hour support system. Anyone interested should call (01274) 776888 or e-mail projectworker@bradfordnight stop.org.uk.