Community Campus ’87 was formed by a group of concerned individuals who were motivated to do something about the growing crisis of youth homelessness in Teesside in the mid 1980’s.

The primary aim was simply to provide housing with support, to enable homeless young people to gain the skills and experience to get and then keep their own place to live.

Realisation quickly came that homelessness was often the tip of the iceberg’ and there was a whole host of other contributory issues. Often young people where lacking in confidence, had a low self esteem, and often the reasons for them becoming homeless where often related to the reasons why they experienced low aspirations, poor educational or vocational achievement and low aspirations.

Based on our experiences getting our first property renovated and inspired by a young persons observation that “we could do it ourselves” the key skills project was born and developed in Middlesbrough in the early 1990’s.

In a nutshell, the project focused on renovating empty properties, which were at a surplus in a depressed housing market, which presented a ‘real working environment’ for homeless young people, giving the opportunity to gain valuable construction skills and qualifications, and where the renovations were complete good quality housing.