Vinnies is joining a coalition of organisations in the Everybody’s Home campaign in calling on the Federal Government to fix the broken housing system, as a chronic shortage of affordable housing contributes to record levels of youth homelessness.
On Youth Homelessness Matters Day (#YHMD) today, St Vincent de Paul National Vice President Jacob Miller said skyrocketing house prices, rising rents and the lack of social housing are pushing more and more young people into homelessness in what is a national crisis. ‘These young, vulnerable people are living in cars, couch surfing or sleeping rough. They deserve our help. As a society we can’t leave them without a place to call home – not when there are urgent and economically sound solutions,’ Mr Miller said. The Everybody’s Home campaign is calling for:
More than 25,000 young people under the age of 18 face homelessness each night and a significant proportion (44 per cent) of all individuals who need help from homelessness services are young people and children. In 2019–20, more than 70 per cent of people seeking help from specialist homelessness services were aged 15–24, with 15 per cent of them – almost 42,400 – presenting on their own. “The overwhelming majority of Australia’s top economists and housing experts believe our pandemic economic recovery strategy would be boosted by a large-scale national social housing program. So the solutions are feasible,’ Mr Miller said. ‘But failure to act will leave thousands of young people behind to experience poor educational outcomes and long-term economic disadvantage, perpetuating the cycle of homelessness into adulthood. Which means the impact of homelessness – and therefore of the solutions that we create – can be long lasting, even life long.’ To find out more about the campaign visit: everybodyshome.com.au |