AT a time when so many people have never been so prosperous, it comes as a sobering shock to learn the extent of homelessness among the young in our society.

For today we are told that over the past decade the Nightsafe charity set up in East Lancashire to help 16 to 24-year-olds who have neither a home nor anyone to care for them has provided a bed for the night for more than 4,000 young people.

But whatever circumstances this figure is a measure of -- family breakdown, drug abuse or poverty -- it is chilling to think what might become of so many young people if there was not the kind of help available that Nightsafe provides.

It is a deserving charity if only for the basic help it gives to the young with no home to go to -- that of a bed for up to three nights at its shelter in Blackburn.

But it also warrants support for seeking to turn these 'lost' youngsters -- many of whom many have learning difficulties or are lacking in educational skills -- into independent people capable of looking after themselves, of finding a home and a job and entering the mainstream society they find themselves excluded from. For Nightsafe's bed-for-the-night shelter is only the first rung on the ladder it has built to help youngsters climb out of homelessness and hopelessness.

It also runs a hostel where youngsters leaving the shelter can live and begin to rebuild their lives and in the day offers educational support and confidence-building social facilities that can lead to formal training for qualifications that lead to the world of work and income.

And it also has a 'half-way' house block of flats where young people who have enough skills to live semi-independently are steered towards being able to live on their own and stand on their own feet.

It may often be a slow and uncertain process, but is one that should be encouraged and one for which East Lancashire must be grateful -- when the need for it is measured in such large numbers.