Homelessness is a weird subject, everyone’s aware of it but no one wants to talk about it.
Maybe you notice the people sleeping on cardboard on Bourke Street but you don’t make eye contact with them.
What you probably don’t realise are how many people you walk by, old and young, who are in a similar position.
For some it’s easier to not think about it, but for those affected by homelessness, particularly those under 25, it becomes a focal point of your daily existence — it determines the direction of your life, not unlike a compass.
In 2022, more than 22,000 Victorians under 18 accessed Specialist Homelessness Services to escape poverty and family violence. With costs of living and lack of housing particularly in Melbourne, these numbers are expected to continue rising.
As of 2020, it’s estimated one in four homeless Australians is under the age of 25.
When I was kicked out, I’d already spent the better part of my childhood taking any opportunity I could to escape my family’s complex and tumultuous dynamic steeped in domestic violence and intergenerational trauma.
I couldn’t go to school, I couldn’t work, I had no other options and nowhere to go, I’d slipped through the system again and again as a child and ended up right back at square one. I was unable to find any sort of stability even in young adulthood, until I finally got that precious little call back and was offered a second chance most people aren’t lucky enough to get.
I’m 23 now, and I’ve been in stable accommodation for almost a year. I’m studying again, working, able to develop functional relationships and sleep in a bed that’s safe and mine, something I haven’t had for basically my entire life.
Youth homelessness is a solvable problem, it’s real and it matters. Every young person deserves the best start available to them and to be supported in pursuing their full potential. No young person should be homeless in Melbourne, forced to sleep on the streets, in their car, on someone’s floor, someone’s couch, or anywhere else that’s not safe or sustainable.
It’s not hard to see us if you know how to look, and it’s not hard to help us, or even to seek help yourself, if you know where to go and what to ask.
Launch Housing is making an effort to end homelessness in Melbourne, an effort you can be a part of.
Learn more at melbournezero.org.au
