Youth homelessness
in Australia

Poverty is one of the main reasons why families become homeless. They don’t have enough money for the basics and have very limited access to affordable and available housing. Poverty can be the result of many social, economic and health-related factors. Individual factors, such as low educational attainment, unemployment, experience of family and domestic violence, ill health (including mental health issues) and disability, trauma, and substance misuse.²

Domestic and family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children in Australia.

In 2021-22, 108,000 Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) clients experienced family and domestic violence, equating to 39% of all clients. 40% or 43,200 people receiving SHS support are single parents with one or more children, and have accessed these services due to domestic and family violence.³

Housing is a necessity, not a commodity. But in Australia it is treated as the latter. Tax offsets for those who invest in housing, has further concentrated home ownership to an increasingly smaller and wealthier proportion of the population. With more families in the rental market and a decline in new construction over recent decades, the price of rentals has increased significantly. In 2024, across Australia, less than 1% of rental properties advertised would be affordable for a person earning a full time minimum wage.⁴ The figure is even lower for people on Youth Allowance or a Disability Support Pension.

For families experiencing separation or divorce, illness or disability, their ability to afford safe housing is vastly reduced. Even for families who have no changes to their financial fortunes are being forced to relocate due to rental prices rising significantly faster than wage increases. When families are unable to secure a safe home in the rental market, few options exist. The availability of public housing has declined for several decades because it is not longer considered a priority by governments.