Another month, another newsletter. It’s autumn once again, and though leaves don’t tend to fall much on our island-home, it does feel like Groundhog Day at times. Some of Shelter NSW team members have been working in the housing policy space for years – or decades – and through we acknowledge and celebrate progress as it occurs, we are also dismayed at how little has been done by successive governments to address urgent and heartbreaking issues, none more so than for youth homelessness.

This Wednesday 15 April marks Youth Homelessness Matters Day. What will it take for urgent and ambitious action to be taken?

On any given night in Australia, thousands of young people are without a safe place to call home. Some are sleeping rough, but many more are hidden. Couch surfing, moving between temporary arrangements, enduring severe overcrowding, or staying in unsafe situations because there is nowhere else to go.Youth Homelessness Matters Day is a national call to confront this reality and to demand action from governments. The latest data is stark: more than 42,700 children and young people presented alone to homelessness services last year, yet half of those seeking a crisis bed were turned away due to a lack of funding and capacity.

Behind these numbers are young people navigating family violence, housing instability and poverty. Many are cut off from education, support networks and other opportunities. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth, who are significantly overrepresented, these challenges are even more acute. This is not a marginal issue but systemic failure, including failure to take this challenge seriously from successive governments from all sides of the aisle. 

As we often repeat, homelessness, poverty, and housing insecurity are all policy choices. We have the resources to address them. Governments and other institutions simply decide not to because they tend to prioritise the issues that affect the most socio-economically and politically powerful groups.  

But Shelter NSW and other social justice advocate will continue to work along people facing disadvantage, including young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, to demand justice.  

In NSW, specialist homelessness services are under sustained pressure, with demand far outstripping supply. Without significant new investment, services will continue to turn young people away, and the cycle of homelessness will deepen. 

The solutions are well understood. We need a substantial increase in funding for specialist homelessness services, including a commitment to lift resourcing in line with demand. We need investment in early intervention and prevention to stop young people entering homelessness in the first place. And we need a pipeline of genuinely affordable housing, particularly for young people transitioning out of crisis, to ensure homelessness is not a revolving door. 

Youth Homelessness Matters Day is a moment to push for that change. Shelter NSW is calling on the NSW Government to step up investment across the system, from crisis responses to long-term housing, so that no young person is turned away from the support they need. 

This Wednesday, we encourage you to take action: share the message, support frontline services, engage your networks, and advocate directly to decision-makers, most importantly your local MP. Ending youth homelessness is achievable, but only if we treat it as the urgent policy priority it is.