Rising rents, the housing crisis and insecure work have made escaping homelessness all the harder for young people. Furthermore, these pressures sit alongside systems that weren’t designed with them in mind.
“Young people experiencing homelessness often have complex and intersecting challenges,” says Michelle Ackerman, Head of Youth Support Services at Youth Off The Streets. “That can include poverty, mental health challenges, alcohol or drug dependence, disengagement from education and involvement with the police or youth justice system.”
What young people encounter next is a system built for adults – one that struggles to provide accessible entry points, sustained support or realistic pathways out.
“We know that when a young person experiences homelessness early in life, they are far more likely to cycle in and out of homelessness throughout their life,” says Michelle.
The trauma of homelessness, combined with limited exit pathways, means that even when young people seek help, there’s no guarantee it will lead to a way out of homelessness.
A closed door in crisis
“The youth specialist homelessness service system simply doesn’t have the capacity to respond to the demand,” says Michelle. “For every two children or young people who present to a youth crisis accommodation service, only one will get a bed. We’re only meeting 50 percent of the demand for support.”
For the young people who are turned away, access to safety, stability and independence is effectively shut off.
“Being denied crisis accommodation forces many into couch surfing,” says Michelle. “That’s a highly unstable arrangement that places them at a higher risk of exploitation, sexual violence and negative impacts on their mental health, while making education, employment and long-term housing pathways far more difficult to access.”
Crisis accommodation is often the point at which young people can stabilise, engage with services and begin planning an exit from homelessness. Without it, young people lose the foundation they desperately need to rebuild their lives.
Crisis accommodation without exits
Even when a young person is able to secure a bed in crisis accommodation, their pathway out of homelessness is still uncertain.
“Bottlenecks in the system mean young people who have managed to access a spot in youth crisis accommodation are forced to remain in the system for longer, as there are no appropriate and affordable exit housing options,” says Michelle.
As a result, lengths of stay continue to climb. In 2025, the average stay in Youth Off The Streets crisis accommodation reached four months, reflecting the growing difficulty of securing safe, affordable and sustainable housing. As crisis accommodation is intended to be short-term, extended stays can take a toll on the young people who feel ready to move on but have nowhere to go.
Beyond the personal impact, these delays compound system pressure by reducing bed turnover and limiting access for other young people in urgent need.
The problem is systemic. Crisis accommodation has become not just a safety net, but the primary intervention.
“The current capacity of youth specialist homelessness services doesn’t allow for appropriate investment in early intervention and prevention,” says Michelle. “That means we’re constantly trapped in crisis response – only engaging once children and young people are already experiencing homelessness.”
“Responding earlier would help prevent crisis presentations altogether and reduce the trauma children and young people experience through their homelessness.”
Priced out of the private rental market
For young people attempting to exit homelessness, the private rental market is often the first barrier they encounter – and for many, it is insurmountable.
Poverty is a major reason why. Around 80 per cent of the young people supported by Youth Off The Streets’ homelessness services are living on incomes below the poverty line, making the transition out of homelessness financially out of reach from the start.
“The income support available to young people who meet the Unreasonable to Live at Home Allowance puts young people over $200 per week below the poverty line,” says Michelle. “We’re expecting young people to be able to house, feed, clothe, educate themselves and travel to school or work on less than $50 per day.”
“This is completely unrealistic – and the ever-increasing cost of living further compounds young people’s experience of poverty.”
Even at the maximum rate, income support payments for young people living independently fall well short of what is needed to secure and sustain a private tenancy.
The latest Rental Affordability Snapshot revealed that zero properties across Australia are affordable for a young person on Youth Allowance.
Young people also typically have little to no savings and limited rental history, making them significantly less competitive than adult applicants.
In a housing market defined by record-high rents and low vacancy rates, these disadvantages make securing housing increasingly unattainable – even for employed young people.
These pressures are further intensified by the rapid growth of the short-term rental agreement industry, such as platforms like Airbnb.
“This is an unregulated industry that is consistently increasing, reducing housing stock from the tenancy market and pushing rental prices higher because of demand,” says Michelle. “We need regulation in these areas to respond to the current pressures on the housing system.”
Accessing social housing can be just as difficult
For young people trying to exit homelessness, social housing is often assumed to be the most viable alternative when private rentals are out of reach. In reality, accessing social housing can be just as difficult.
“Social housing stock doesn’t meet demand and young people are competing with adults and families for the properties available,” says Michelle.
Lower incomes have a direct knock-on effect. Social and community housing providers set rent as a proportion of a tenant’s income, including any Commonwealth Rent Assistance they’re eligible for. That means who they choose to house significantly affects how much rent they can collect.
This is the ‘youth housing penalty’ in action. If a provider houses a person under the age of 22, they collect around 30 per cent less rent than they would from an adult receiving JobSeeker support. If they house a young person instead of a pensioner, they collect around 46 per cent less rent.
“Young people’s incomes makes them an unviable social housing tenant as their rental payments don’t cover operational and property management costs,” says Michelle. “That means young people are excluded from this stock, reducing the safety net even further.”
Without access to either the private rental market or social housing, young people are left with few realistic pathways out of homelessness – reinforcing the very cycles the system is meant to prevent.
Why the system doesn’t work for young people – and what does work
“Experiencing homelessness is extremely traumatic for a young person, regardless of how long they are homeless for,” says Michelle. “The main reasons for homelessness for young people are domestic and family violence and family breakdown, so these young people have already experienced significant trauma in their family environment.”
The housing system isn’t built with this reality in mind.
“The homelessness system is conceptualised on adult capabilities and experiences,” says Michelle. “So we are effectively forcing young people to navigate a complex system that isn’t age- or developmentally-appropriate for them and isn’t set up to meet their specific needs.”
“This just compounds the trauma they already have.”
Our current housing system continues to treat young people as a subset of the adult system, rather than as a distinct group with different developmental and support needs. As a result, young people face barriers at every stage: accessing crisis accommodation, progressing into stable housing and sustaining a tenancy without becoming homeless again.
At Youth Off The Streets, young people are supported through a wraparound model that combines housing support with dedicated case management, counselling, education and employment support and living skills to build independence. This approach recognises that housing alone is rarely enough – particularly for young people recovering from trauma.
Evidence shows that when housing is delivered alongside these supports, young people are more likely to stabilise, maintain tenancies, re-engage with education or employment and are less likely to cycle back into homelessness.
Without a youth-specific housing system – one that is age-appropriate, adequately funded and designed to support young people beyond crisis – youth homelessness will remain a problem we manage rather than one we prevent.
