This week’s episode of Panorama followed the tough lives of homeless young people trying to make a future for themselves in Stoke-on-Trent, a city of derelict factories. Unable to rely on the defunct pottery industry for jobs, many of the city’s 900 unemployed young people end up in the YMCA, where Panorama met a number of homeless youngsters.

Here are eight important things we learned from Young, Homeless and Fighting Back.

1. As it turns out, it’s not that fun to stay in the YMCA. But it’s the only option for 10,000 young people across the UK who have no other choice.

2. It’s not a free ticket to a nice flat and a cushy life for these youngsters either – they have to pay rent, either from their wages or out of their housing benefit.

3. …So the government’s vow to cut housing benefit to 18-21-year-olds by 2017 will inevitably leave many young people completely homeless.

4. The YMCA did house some naughty tearaway teens, who got chucked out of home because they couldn’t behave. People like 16-year-old Connor, who had been chucked out of both his parents’ and grandparents’ house in the last year, and was kicked out of the YMCA at one point in the episode for drunkenly threatening a member of staff.

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(BBC/PA)

5. There are also young homeless people like Molly, who finds it difficult to integrate into society because of her serious anger issues. Her angry outbursts are a result of the sexual abuse she suffered aged 17, when a gang of men beat and raped her, and then threatened her family.

6. Other youngsters like Nat end up homeless after having their own children taken into care. Nat was just 19 when she had her child taken away, as she was deemed too depressed to take proper care of the child. Since then, she’s had three more children, also taken into care.

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(BBC/PA)

7. While many employers overlook homeless youths who have no qualifications and few skills to offer, Emma Bridgewater offers training and jobs to young people and particularly likes to help those living in the YMCA.

8. Not all homeless young people are the lazy layabouts some newspapers would have you believe. Despite going through a huge amount of hardship, Molly managed to land herself a job in a takeaway and get herself off benefits.

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(BBC/PA)