Earlier this month, while students across Western Australia prepared to return to school, hundreds of young people started the school year without a safe place to sleep.
New data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has shown 830 unaccompanied children and young people are being assisted by specialist homelessness services on any given day – that’s a 17 per cent increase in just one year.
Anglicare WA has joined housing peak bodies, other frontline services, and young people with lived experience of homelessness, to call for urgent action to address this issue and share the story of young people who deserve better from the state’s vast resources.
Earlier this month, Kylie Wallace from the Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia, and Caitlan, a member of the Youth Homelessness Advisory Council spoke to the media, including the Sunday Times and ABC News, to shine a light on this hidden crisis. Caitlan told her story of becoming homeless at just 11 years old in her last year of primary school, and the need for action to ensure no other young person experiences what she did.
This work builds on the sector’s collaboration to develop the Ending Child and Youth Homelessness Pre-Budget Submission released in 2025, to which Anglicare WA made a significant contribution.
This document gathered evidence across the sector, with support of young people with lived experience of homelessness, to create a clear roadmap for ending youth homelessness.
It called for:
- Investing in a “Housing First for Youth” model which delivers a variety of accommodation and housing models for young people, including crisis accommodation, more Youth Foyers, and more social and affordable housing.
- Strengthening prevention and early intervention initiatives, such as Place-Based Youth Service Hubs.
- Building the capacity and coordination of the youth homelessness sector.
- Ensuring the voices of young people with lived experience are embedded in policy and service design.
Our vision is bold, but achievable. As the richest state in one of the richest nations in the world, Western Australia can end youth homelessness and ensure no child goes without a safe place to sleep at night by investing in the asks in our Pre-Budget Submission.
