Along with colleagues, Kate Colvin, CEO at Homelessness Australia and Shorna Moore from Melbourne City Mission, Wendy Hayhurst, CHIA’s CEO spent the last sitting week before Parliament  meeting with MPs, Senators, staffers and officials to talk about solutions to young people’s homelessness.

While the private rental sector has long been difficult for young people to access, the social housing system isn’t much better. Every year around 15,000 unaccompanied 16-24 year olds using homelessness services can’t be helped with the long term social rented homes they need. At present only 3 percent of social housing is rented by a young person.

We know that’s it much more ‘expensive’ to house many young people. Due to youth allowance being much lower the rents they can afford to pay are around 25% less than a person receiving Job Seeker.

While the Housing Australia Future Fund is now in place,  without young people being one of the target groups it’s unlikely on its own the program can tackle this issue.  One possible way to kick start a youth housing program is to use the additional $1 billion investment that will be made into National Housing Infrastructure Facility (NHIF).  With assistance from Dr. Laurence Troy at the University of Sydney we modelled what could be achieved – around 2000 dwellings helping up to 4,000 young people into tenancies. Such a program could support different housing models to suit the different needs of young people, including youth foyers, one or two bedroomed flats or supported living.

We know that providing a home with the right supports to a young homeless person is going to have huge beneficial consequences for them but also for the community. Research commissioned from SGS Economics and Planning by Housing all Australians and released earlier in April estimates that ‘failure to fix youth homelessness will be costing the wider community $2.7 billion per year by 2051’.

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