The Albert Kennedy Trust

Albert Kennedy Trust

Albert Kennedy Trust logo
Founded	1989
Focus	Homeless LGBT youth
Location	England
Key people	Cath Hall (Founder) Tim Sigsworth MBE (Chief Executive)
Employees	23

Cath Hall (Founder)

The Albert Kennedy Trust is a voluntary organisation based in England, created in 1989 to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people who are homeless, living in a hostile environment or in housing crisis. It started in Greater Manchester in 1989 and opened in London in 1996, and expanded to Newcastle in 2013.

The Trust is named after Albert Kennedy (31 January 1973 - 30 April 1989), a 16-year-old Social Services care leaver from Manchester. He died after falling from a car park roof in Manchester city centre, while being chased by several attackers in a car. Albert was a runaway from a children's home in Salford.

Manchester’s gay community was moved into action by the Trust’s founder patron Cath Hall, a heterosexual foster carer who admitted she could not meet the full range of needs of LGBT young people in her care. She had observed that Albert's case was not isolated, and that many other LGBT young people in and out of the foster care system were struggling with the effects of homophobia. Cath Hall described the founding of the trust as ""an emotional response, an angry response, to what was going on".

As a result, the Albert Kennedy Trust was formed, officially becoming a trust in 1990.

The trust was founded on the premise that young LGBT people needed somewhere to go if they were kicked out of their parental home or the care system. Volunteers (single people, couples and families) with a spare room can give an LGBT young person a home, from a few nights to two years. All carers are assessed and trained to ensure they are appropriate and able to take on these roles. There is also a bank of trained volunteer Mentors and Befrienders, who can spend a couple of hours a week with an LGBT young person who needs a friendly ear or practical support.

In 2013, the trust opened two safe houses as part of the 'Purple Door' project — one in Manchester, one in London—providing supplemental accommodation to that provided by volunteers.

According to reporting in The Guardian, the demand for the trust's services have been rising: in 2010, they provided support for 149 people in London and 85 in Manchester. In 2013, the London figure had "doubled" and the number in Manchester had reached 152.

The Trust also provided services in Brighton starting in 2003, but due to funding issues had to withdraw from the city in May 2006.