Albany Youth Support Association calls for help in fight to stem rising tide of youth homelessness in regions

A leading Great Southern youth support service has upgraded its Albany drop-in centre to help more homeless young people as a State parliamentary inquiry reveals the extent of the youth housing crisis in regional WA. Albany Youth Support Association — operator of the region’s only youth refuge, Young House — has called for more support for vulnerable people aged 12 to 25 at risk of homelessness this winter. AYSA outreach services manager Chrystie Flint said the region’s rental crunch was pushing more young people into crisis — even those with jobs. “Our biggest concern is the ability to meet their essential needs and support them with whatever accommodation they are managing to keep,” she said. “We have got young people living out of their cars, or they’re studying and living out of tents in people’s backyards. “I think particularly in Albany and being a young person new to the rental market with minimal to no rental references — you have no chance.” AYSA has recently fitted out its Sanford Road youth drop-in centre to provide daytime amenities for young people who are rough sleeping or couch surfing. They can access a kitchen, hot meals, a shower and laundry facilities thanks to the donation of a dryer from Retravision Albany. Ms Flint said two-thirds of the young people their outreach workers helped were couch surfing, with up to 25 people a day visiting the drop-in centre. “Our priority through winter is letting the young people know that they are not alone, they are not isolated, keeping them connected to their community, to each other, and safe,” she said. “I think young people are already falling through the gaps with a lot of those essential needs being met because we don’t get funded for that sort of thing. “We certainly don’t get funding to provide laundry facilities or food for them on a daily basis, water for them to shower. “Those sorts of costs are not factored into your contracts so we rely heavily on the community for donations such as non-perishable goods, sanitary products, blankets, hygiene products and food. So businesses becoming more and more aware of the situation young people are facing is vital.” A Shelter WA submission to an ongoing State parliamentary inquiry into homelessness funding revealed “high levels of unmet need” across WA, especially in the regions. Of the 73 homelessness services surveyed, just over a quarter said they had the resources to meet 90 per cent or more of their client demand. The Shelter WA report published in May said WA’s homelessness strategy must “rapidly transition” its primary focus from “rough-sleeping homelessness” to programs focused on early intervention and prevention. “Due to the strong evidence of links between childhood and adolescent homelessness and subsequent adult chronic homelessness, early intervention programs for children and young people experiencing the first early spells of homelessness are critical,” the report said. Anglicare WA is another major support service provider which has made a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the financial administration of the State’s homelessness services. Speaking at an inquiry hearing last month, Anglicare WA chief executive Mark Glasson said people in regional WA received “a much more ad hoc response to their service needs” because of a lack of resources compared with the metropolitan area. “What we’ve seen recently in our regional services is the lack of any response to homelessness,” Mr Glasson said. “Over the last 18 months, for the first time ever our housing support workers and our other housing service providers have had nothing to offer. “The availability of affordable housing in WA’s regions has completely tanked.” Vinnies WA told the inquiry that increased investment in homelessness services had been “almost exclusively adult-focused with the critical issue of youth homelessness largely overlooked”. “Around 50 per cent of young adult rough sleepers have experienced homelessness when they were young, therefore funding specialised youth homelessness services is fundamental to ending homelessness into the future,” Vinnies WA said in its submission. Shadow housing minister Steve Martin, who sits on the parliamentary committee, said there was a “real gap” in services for young people. “From listening to those submissions at the hearings, youth homelessness and housing is a real mess at the moment,” he said. “There is an unmet need everywhere, and the other point that is coming through from a number of the submissions is that regional WA is just being left behind. First of all, you need housing. But housing on its own is just nowhere near enough, so you need the wraparound services.” AYSA chief executive Ian Clarke said local businesses had stepped in to help, with the organisation recently partnering with Wellington and Reeves to find rentals for young people looking to leave the refuge. He said the not-for-profit organisation needed more community support to meet demand. “Only last week we have been able to house one young man from the refuge ... thanks to a real estate company who is stepping up and actually working with us to achieve that,” he said. “It’s really good to see that businesses more and more are starting to recognise that they have a role to play as well and that they can actually genuinely help young people with their lives.”