Sleeping in a graveyard is nothing unusual for Wayne.

The 24-year-old is one of an increasing number of young people forced to desperate measures by homelessness.

Maidstone Day Centre is seeing more and more teens and people in their early 20s asking for help after being kicked out of their family homes.

This week the Kent Messenger launches its annual You Can Help Christmas appeal for the Knightrider Street charity. Run by Maidstone Christian Care it provides daytime accommodation and showers for rough sleepers and “sofa surfers”.

Staff also help homeless people apply for jobs and houses in an effort to help them turn their lives around. Day centre manager Sue Tallowin said: “It is noticeable this year that more people aged 16 to 18 are turning to us.

"When someone is in full time education you get child benefits and working tax credits, but these stop if a child comes out of education. It is because of this that some parents have told their children they can no longer afford to have them living with them.

Wayne regularly visits the centre. After a relationship breakdown, he has been sleeping on friends’ sofas in Maidstone. His bar work dried up in February and he has been trying to find a job ever since.

He said: "From one night to the next, I don't know where I will be sleeping.

"It could be on a friend's sofa, or sleeping in a graveyard somewhere. There was nothing that could prepare me for the shock of my first night outside.

"The worst part was the cold and just thinking it would be easier to end things there and then.”

Donating to the Kent Messenger's campaign is easy. Simply add an extra item of shopping during your weekly shop and drop it in the trolleys or collection points marked with You Can Help posters and Christmas decorations.
Useful items include cans of non-perishable food which can be stored in the centre’s food store. Items of warm clothing, such as hats, gloves and scarves are also needed.
Donations can be made at Morrisons, Sutton Road, Park Wood and Tesco, Farleigh Hill, Tovil, and Iceland in the Mall Chequers.
Maidstone Grammar School in Barton Road, and the First and Last pub, in Bower Place, Maidstone, and the Kent Messenger, at 6-7 Middle Row, are also running collection points.