Silenced and sleeping rough: Why we can no longer ignore the youth homelessness crisis
This year’s theme for Youth Week, Strength in Our Stories, reminds us that young people are not only our future - but they are also our present. They are leaders, advocates and changemakers.
Their voices matter, and this week is an opportunity to ensure those voices are not only heard, but acted upon.
It is a time to shine a light on a growing and urgent issue: the rise in child and youth homelessness.
If we, as a community and as governments, do not invest in early intervention and prevention, we are not ending homelessness, we are perpetuating it.
This is why place-based services for young people are crucial in providing support when it is needed most.
We see this support provided at Vinnies WA’s two Passages Youth Engagement Hubs in Perth and Peel.
Passages provides safe, inclusive, and non-judgemental spaces for young people aged 12 to 25 who are experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness and social exclusion.
These hubs respond to the complex and intersecting challenges of young people - think family breakdowns, housing instability, mental health concerns and disengagement from education and employment.
At its core, Passages offers low-barrier entry points to support, meaning that young people don’t need to jump through various hoops to get help.
Grounded in a trauma-informed, relational approach, skilled youth workers build trust with young people who may feel disconnected from, or unable to access, traditional services.
In a recent survey, when we asked young people who had accessed Passages questions such as “What would your life be like without Passages?” we received many responses – but the most harrowing theme that came to light was a sense of desperation, hopelessness, of feeling unworthy and alone.
Truth be told, the reality on the ground across youth homelessness services is stark.
Vinnies WA’s Passages Youth Engagement Hubs supported 750 young people in 2025, of which 39 per cent reported sleeping rough.
Despite every effort, there were countless times where youth workers had to tell a young person that no accommodation was available for them that night.
Staff were in despair knowing that they had to send a young person back out onto the street, often unsure of their safety and clinging onto hope that they would see them again, safe and unharmed.
How many times can someone face rejection before they give up hope?
Youth homelessness is a far less visible crisis, and so too is the hidden harm that these young people endure, which propels them into this relentless cycle.
During a 12-month period in 2024/25, Passages data revealed that one in five unaccompanied children and young people who used the Passages service reported experiences of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, or financial, including family and domestic violence), episodes of extreme distress, including suicide attempts, severe anxiety, or panic attacks, and instances of overdosing.
How many times can someone be exploited before they give up hope?
A critical lack of accommodation remains one of the biggest barriers to resolving youth homelessness, and it is evidence of a system under significant pressure.
With rising rental costs far beyond the reach for hose on Youth Allowance, the situation continues to worsen.
In collaboration with Vinnies WA’s sector partners Mission Australia, Indigo Junction, Perth Inner City Youth Service, the WA Alliance to End Homelessness, MercyCare, and Anglicare WA, a 60-day data snapshot from August to September in 2024 in the Perth metro region revealed that, on average, 69 young people are competing for just 1.83 available youth crisis beds.
In 2024, Vinnies WA, Mission Australia, and Indigo Junction came together to work on a project through
ThirdStory (formerly Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand) to drive new approaches to social impact and systems change.
From this collaboration, the Ending Child and Youth Homelessness campaign emerged, uniting the sector, amplifying the voices and stories of young people with lived experience and delivering a Pre-budget Submission with clear, targeted investment priorities.
This unified approach is powerful in a sector where organisations often work independently of each other - but together, we voice an urgent need to tackle the growing and seemingly invisible youth homelessness crisis, which has surged by a further 17 per cent to 830 unaccompanied children and young people in the past year.
Together, our call to action carries one simple message: to put an end to the hundreds of children and young people in WA who don’t have a place to call home.
Providing opportunities creates hope that can lead to change.
Now is the time to invest in early intervention and prevention.
Now is the time to listen to young people.
Now is the time to act.
We need to work together as a community and with government to restore hope to our children and young people, so they don’t become the next generation to experience adult homelessness.
This piece was written by Chrissie Smith, who is the Director of Specialist Community Services at Vinnies WA.
Vinnies WA is among the service providers spearheading the End Child and Youth Homelessness campaign.
“If we, as a community and as governments, do not invest in early intervention and prevention, we are not ending homelessness, we are perpetuating it.”