Four brave kids gave up their warm beds on Thursday night for the first MACs End Youth Homelessness Sleep Out involving under 18s.
The Belfast-based charity helps keep around 1,000 young people off Northern Ireland’s streets every year.
Sixty sleep out volunteers joined them for this year’s fundraiser on freezing concrete floors at East Belfast ’s Banana Block as temperatures fell to 5 degrees.
Read more: Sleepout with MACS to help young people left homeless across NI
While some of the children were delighted to get Friday off school, they were all there to learn about the horrors others face when their care systems break down.
Belfast Live joined them for a night of music, yoga, comedy and tea before bedding down in sleeping bags on cardboard mattresses.
Mums Caroline Parker and Jennifer Massey from Newcastle were there with their kids, Ella Parker, 10, 10-year-old Colleen Massey and her big brother Keon, 11.
Caroline told us: “Homelessness is such a big thing now for older ones and younger ones. This is only a wee touch of what it is like really but... I think it was important for the kids to come up do it to show them what it was like."
Jennifer added: “It really can happen to anyone.”
Ella added: “I wanted to see the experience of what happens if you are homeless, what it feels like. I’m already cold.”
Belfast lad Felix also slept out with his mum and MACS supporter Carla Rollock.
On average MACS helps around 1,000 young people a year across Belfast, Lisburn, Downpatrick and Newry.
Kate Martin, interim chief executive at MACS NI, said: “This is a very important event. It raises awareness around youth homelessness and what’s actually happening. It lets young people who know support know about us and also people who would like to support us.”
Kate says every penny raised from the sleep out goes to helping support 16-21-year-olds with setting up homes after they are left homeless or leaving care.
“We meet their individual needs with whatever we can do to support them,” she added. “Homelessness is very much on the agenda at the moment... but for young people it’s a scary place to be when you’re 17,18, 19 and suddenly realise you have nowhere to go.”
Comedian Micky Bartlett and singer-songwriter Stephen Rafferty gave up some of their free time to help keep spirits up during the sleep out.
Micky told us: “With the way things are going these days with the cost of living, any of us could be in trouble. I think it’s a worthwhile cause so I came down to entertain the troops that are doing something important.
“I’m trying to move house at the minute and it’s completely unaffordable for somebody by themselves - and I’m famous. So if somebody’s just leaving school and they’re falling on hard times or having problems at home with their family and they can’t get out somewhere else, there’s [not enough] support from the government either.
“When you see people sleeping on the streets, that’s the end of the cycle,” he added. “[MACS] are trying to help people before it gets to that stage.”
Stephen said: “I released a single last Christmas to highlight the issues around loneliness and homelessness in the coldest months of the year. Being involved backs up why I wrote the song in the first place.”
Hope Street star Niamh McGrady also popped in to support the “fundamental work” MACS does with a meditative sound healing session.
She said: “Our young people are precious and need support.
“People talk about visible homelessness that you see on the street and then there’s the invisible homelessness. No vulnerable young person should be allowed to slip through the cracks and that’s what MACS are there to do.
“It’s not a level playing field how everybody gets their start in life and children and young people, if they are in trouble, it’s really not their fault,” she added. “Unfortunately they’ve been failed by the caregivers in their lives and they need to build up their skills to have a fantastic future because they deserve a fantastic future.”
MACS chief Kate says the charity is always looking for volunteer mentors to “go out and work with the young person, identify goals and work with the young person to achieve their goals and give young people opportunities”.
See MACS for more information. If you would like to support our reporter’s fundraiser for the charity sleep out, click here.
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