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Reynolds, Rebecca --- "The dilemma of now: the 'invisible' youth homelessness crisis" [2009] ALRCRefJl 37; (2009) 94 Australian Law Reform Commission Reform Journal 34


Reform Issue 94 Summer 2009

This article appears on pages 34–35 of the original journal.

The dilemma of now

The ‘invisible’ youth homelessness crisis

By Rebecca Reynolds*

It is true to say that the changes the federal Government is talking about in relation to the way homelessness is dealt with—at a state and federal level—are a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity.

Government information talks about proactive and extensive ways to make meaningful social changes that actually address the problems of homelessness in Australia. We have both federal and state governments that say they are willing to work together; a national consultation process that promises to overhaul homelessness legislation; a policy that aims to reduce significantly homelessness and the factors that lead to it; and the money to support the policy. Government housing reforms promise new homes and extensive renovations to tired community housing stock and, since the initial announcements, an extensive process of acquisition and revitalisation has been undertaken. Most of the acquisition is of land on which to build new stock—which takes time—and most of the revitalisation requires, logically, that tenants be moved out of their current accommodation for renovations to occur.

But what do we do while these things are happening? Do we just ask the young person accessing the youth support service Twenty10, who is in need of housing, to ‘hold out’ until building is complete and renovations are finished? I doubt any policy makers or community workers would suggest that this is appropriate. But it is really hard to quantify youth homelessness for those in government who are in a position to make accommodation more immediately available for the young people we see at Twenty10 on a daily basis. Traditional data collection mechanisms tend to make young people invisible to the system as it is difficult to describe what homelessness looks like for young folk in 2009.

Difficult to describe because when I think about what youth homelessness looks like, the picture is something that is more easy for us all to relate to than the idea of sleeping rough on the street. Homelessness looks like a night on a friend’s couch, or staying out all night dancing. It looks like turning that night out at the pub into an all night tryst or walking the streets all night and sleeping through the day. While many of us have been there at some point, the big difference is that we usually have been there by choice. We have an alternative.

Young people experiencing homelessness in 2009 are forced into these situations night after night, just so they can have somewhere to rest or some way to kill time.

And then there are those who have secured themselves a room in some form of boarding or shared accommodation—a room that is often shared with others. Take Tami, for example. Tami is a young person who Twenty10 was helping to sort out identification. Tami had been thrown out of home when he told his parents that he was gay. He was unable to communicate with his parents or access the family home, and was having difficulty getting his birth certificate to prove his identity. Think about how many times you need to prove who you are to get things done! Enrolling for courses, signing leases, negotiating with Centrelink and public housing authorities ... the list continues. But with the support of his case manager and after many conversations with the Roads and Traffic Authority, the final step in getting an identity card sorted was a piece of mail with Tami’s current address on it. The mail itself was not the problem—the problem was Tami being able to get into the boarding house bedroom where the mail was located, as the room was being rented by another person at the time. There is really nothing worse than not knowing what you are walking into—but that is Tami’s daily reality.

Visibility problems

Our homeless young people are invisible to most of our community. You probably would not think twice if you walked past them on the street, saw them sleeping in the sunshine in the local park or bought them a drink in a bar. It is with this in mind that, as the Government starts talking about introducing specific homelessness legislation, we strongly encourage the retention of a broad definition of homelessness. If only those who are roofless are counted in homelessness data collection methodologies, then this will lead us to solutions and policies that only tackle a small percentage of the problem.

While the government has, metaphorically, aligned the planets to attempt to shift the fundamental circumstances that lead to homelessness, there is a different collection of circumstances at work that are impacting on the young people who are accessing Twenty10 and other youth accommodation and crisis services across Australia. As services and workers, we are encouraging and supporting a systemically invisible group of people to become visible and ask for the assistance that they are entitled to—only to not be able to provide them with any sustainable solutions. There is an inadequate supply of community and government housing stock and a private rental market that is applying an ever increasing amount of financial pressure to renters.

Hence, our dilemma at Twenty10. While improvements are on the way and broad based issues are being tackled, ours is the dilemma of what do we do right now? What do we do tonight? Next week? Next month? Backpackers’ hostels and boarding houses are a short-term solution but it is an impossible ask for a young person or a service to continue to pay for these services on a daily basis—when and if they are available. There are also significant concerns around the standards of many facilities that provide temporary accommodation. Additionally, in being forced to use these services, young people of diverse genders and sexualities are often being placed at an even greater risk of homophobic violence, intimidation and discrimination. These young people are at greater risk of being fired from tenuous employment situations (where the least experienced is often the first to go); of being unable to maintain a school schedule; of not being able to prepare or store food; of not being able to wash and dry clothes ... the list goes on. Governments (at all levels) and our communities need to step up and speed up the efforts to find a solution to this problem—a solution that is effective today and into the future.

Our homeless young people are clever and resilient. They take what the world throws at them and find a way to make it work. They set a strong example for governments and services to emulate. I wonder if we are as ready and able to deal with the challenges that are there for us to tackle.

* Rebecca Reynolds is the Managing Director of Twenty10, a not-for-profit organisation based in Sydney, that supports and works with young people, communities and families of diverse genders and sexualities.


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