Homelessness crisis: Urgent action is required
Every night in Victoria, there are more than 6,000 young people with no safe place to sleep.
Homelessness is usually a result of other forms of disadvantage building to a crisis. Family violence, abuse and mental health are the major drivers into homelessness for young people. But once they become homeless, they face even more dangerous situations; sleeping rough, in unsafe housing or couch surfing. The longer homelessness lasts, the harder it is to for a young person to rebuild their lives. Homelessness becomes a cycle – surviving from one day to the next.
Without the support of organisations like MCM, a young person can become further entrenched in long term-homelessness, increasing trauma and poverty, often causing them to lose all hope of reaching their full potential.
The facts about youth homelessness everyone should know
Every night in Victoria, there are more than 6,000 young people with no safe place to sleep.
A quarter of all people experiencing homelessness in Victoria are aged 12- 25 – this is a higher incidence than other age groups. Late adolescence and early adulthood is a time of transition and change. Young people need more than a safe place to live, they need age-appropriate support to develop life skills, heal from the trauma they have experienced, and to transition to independence with education and employment.
Family violence, abuse and mental health are the major drivers into homelessness for young people.
- More than half who seek support have at least one mental health condition.
- Nearly 3 out of 5 have also experienced family violence.
Half of adults experiencing long term homelessness first became homeless in their teens. It’s critical that we support young people early on to avoid them staying homeless for life.
What MCM aims to achieve
Our aim is for all young people to reconnect with their family and community. Or where that isn’t possible, to be able to access safe, stable accommodation, and the right care and support to enable them to move beyond their experience of homelessness to become positive, independent, contributing members of society.
You can help put youth homelessness to bed
To understand the causes of youth homelessness and the long-term effects it can cause, you need to hear from the people we support.
Meet Ali
Dad left home when I was little, so I never really knew him. I didn’t have any contact with him after I was four.
Meet Sally
My Dad and I were always close. Mum passed away when I was 7 and I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so it was just the two of us for a really long time.
Meet Cass
Both my parents were drug addicted and violent, and I was in and out of foster care until age 6. My foster care experience was extremely traumatic
