A GROWING number of young drug addicts are finding themselves homeless, agencies are reporting.

Those charged with looking after them feel powerless to help the young people to find beds because of a shortage of rooms and the number of people living on the streets.

At a conference at Darlington's Dolphin Centre, agencies, police, and councils assembled to discuss how to reduce the growing number of addicts living on the streets.

The 700 club in Darlington operates a 24-hour, 18-bed hostel and two-bed house.

From April to September this year, the home had 97 residents.

Manager Ray Parkin said: "We should not be turning over that many people.

"This is an escalating trend. There are four people per week on average requesting homes. It is getting horrendous."

Of the homeless people who approached the centre, 86 per cent were found to have alcohol or drug addiction.

Many of them find themselves back on the streets if they continue their habit.

Mr Parkin said: "When evidence of drugs is found in rooms we have to put people out.

"Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 we have got no choice. If we permit our premises to be used for drugs we are in trouble."

PC Jim Gratton, of the Darlington Youth Offending Team, said: "It is important that police work with hostels to see how information can be shared, and this is not something that has been developed sufficiently. It needs to be worked on."

The Tubwell Project, in the Tubwell Centre, has dealt with 150 homeless people in the past year.

The majority of the homeless drug addicts in Darlington were being evicted up to five times a year because of their substance abuse.

Tom Adams, from the Tubwell Project, said: "At the moment there is a ping-pong effect, where young people are being shifted around the system and their needs are not being met."

First Stop, which offers help to the homeless, has had a similar problem, with 825 addicts in the town requesting help.

Homelessness among addicts is also a problem elsewhere in the region.

The Albert Centre, a treatment and support unit for substance abusers in Middlesbrough, look after 1,090 addicts at the present time.

The centre recently carried out a survey of 300 drug users and discovered that 86 per cent felt that homelessness was their greatest concern.

It also revealed that eviction from local authority homes and hostels was also posing difficulty for the homeless.

To tackle the problem, representatives of organisations at the conference agreed to work together in future.

John Elliston, of Darlington Housing Action, said: "It involves a change in ethos so that is quite a radical thing that we are going to look at.

"A working group is also going to be formed to draw together housing drug issues and it is out of that concrete action will come.