With over 13,000 young people in NSW alone without a secure place to sleep tonight, it’s time we talked about youth homelessness and the critical lack of housing security for young people across our region. Nicky unpacks this issue with Kristy Puckeridge, Manager at Southern Youth and Family Services (SYFS) on this vital episode of Community Matters.

Kristy speaks to the range of issues that impact on housing security for Australian youth with lack of affordable housing options and poverty at the top of the list combined with influences of drug and alcohol, domestic violence, mental health and unstable, erratic and low paying jobs.

Accommodation support services provided by SYFS are explored including crisis accommodation, transitional housing and other options. With over 5,500 young people supported by SYFS last year across their programs it is clear they are doing a lot of great work however 42% of young people seeking accommodation supports were “turned away”, a statistic that Kristy and the team would love to reduce. However, this is indicative of the demand outstripping housing supply options.

Kristy and Nicky discuss the “bottleneck” that occurs when young people are stabilised in crisis accommodation supports, only to have nowhere to go next due to the absolute unavailability of rental housing across the state and the lack of longer-term social housing options.

Current income support levels mean that young people relying on this income are living well below the poverty line in those situations and rental options are literally non-existent meaning that young people cannot survive without additional supports.

Kristy describes programs that SYFS offers like “Rent It Keep It” which is helping young people to understand their obligations as tenants and the role that real estate agents can play working in partnership with organisations like SYFS to ensure that young people can maintain tenancies.

Kristy speaks to the resilience and capacity of young people she has worked with who inspire her every day to do the work she does and the transformative role she has played in seeing young people achieve stability and security.

Resources:

· Southern Youth and Family Services - https://www.syfs.org.au/

· “Rent It Keep It” program - https://www.syfs.org.au/programs/rent-it-keep-it

· Find a Specialist Homelessness Service - https://www.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-construction/social-affordable/emergency-housing/find-a-specialist-homelessness-service

Are you, or someone you know, homeless or at risk of homelessness?

Call:

• Link2Home - 1800 152 152
• Child Protection Helpline - 132 111
• The Domestic Violence Line - 1800 65 64 63

Acknowledgement of Country

Community Industry Group' podcast is recorded on beautiful Dharawal Country, and we acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, and their Elders.

We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture, the world’s oldest living culture, and the contribution they make to the life of this region and our country.

We acknowledge that we live and work on Aboriginal land and recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people.

Music Credit:
"Jarvic 8" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/