Melbourne's west is facing a youth homelessness crisis

Christine Campbell was just 15 years old when she stood outside a police station with only $15, a rosary, her school uniform and the clothes she was wearing.

She had just made the difficult decision to flee her home due to domestic violence, and she didn’t know where to go.

The police referred her to Hanover House, an adult refuge where she would only be able to live for six weeks.

She said she would lay awake at night “anxiously praying for a sign.”

If a new shelter wasn’t able to take her in, she would end up in the same position she was in six weeks ago – she would be homeless.

"I would rather have been homeless than being in an unsafe environment."

A rising number of Australian children find themselves in similar situations to Ms Campbell today.

According to a report by Homelessness Australia, more than 25,000 children under the age of 18 were homeless in 2022 to 2023.

In some states, the number of homeless youth increased by up to 20% from the previous year.

Just as Ms Campbell's time at Hanover House was up, a carer referred her to the Lighthouse Foundation – a charity that supports young people experiencing homelessness in Melbourne.

As of this year, Lighthouse has three homes around Melbourne and provides a place to sleep for over 180 young people. 

Ms Campbell said was offered a shared room with another teenage girl. They shared their stories with each other. Every individual in the house was assigned chores, and rent was $60 a week. Live-in carers helped Ms Campbell to apply for Youth Allowance and helped her to secure a work experience placement for school, which led to a casual job. 

Lighthouse has a team of clinicians who are trained to help their in-house carers process the mental load of their work and better support young people who have experienced trauma.

“It didn’t feel like they were carers,” Ms Campbell said. “It felt like they were human beings that cared for you and wanted the best for you. It’s almost like… they’re not your parents to tell you what to do, but to guide you along, like an older sibling kind of thing. 

“You just felt that they came from a really good place and it wasn’t just a job. They were here to help you every step of the way, and you didn’t feel like a number.

“There is not enough words in the dictionary to tell you how much Lighthouse has helped me. You felt loved. You felt cared for. I felt safe.”

Lighthouse was a life raft for Ms Campbell when she was most in need of help.

But Lighthouse, and other services like it, don’t have the capacity to support the rising number of homeless youth across Melbourne.

According to Homelessness Australia, greater Melbourne is Australia’s youth homelessness hotspot.

Over 15,000 people under the age of 19 in greater Melbourne are homeless.

This is almost 5,000 more than in greater Sydney, and the highest number nationally, which has caused an increase in demand for homelessness services. 

Domestic violence, income poverty and a shortage of affordable housing were reported as the three major contributing factors to this crisis.

Susan Barton AM, founder of Lighthouse Foundation says, “There are a broad spectrum of reasons contributing to homelessness including mental health, family violence, addiction, trauma, abuse, and family breakdown amongst others. 

“Simply put, the homeless population outnumbers available homeless funding and resources.

“If you look at just the City of Melbourne, youth homelessness has increased by 24% since 2016, outpacing the national average by 5%,” Ms Barton says. 

The 2021 Census data revealed that there were almost 18,000 homeless youth aged under 18 in Australia, and over a quarter were from Melbourne.

Ms Barton explained that domestic violence can significantly alter the reality for children and young people, impacting their sleep and daily routines. This impact is often intensified when victims are required to be in public, even for basic tasks. 

“This continual significant stress can affect decision making, and beckon coping mechanisms, especially where support networks are poor or estranged, which may be substance use or other habits, compounding poor decision making. Coping becomes a priority and potentially places the victim closer to homelessness through diverting resources,” she said. 

Rhonda Collins is the manager at Latitude: Directions for Young People, a specialist youth homelessness support service that is funded by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing.

Latitude provides support to young people aged 16 to 25 who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness in Hobsons Bay and Moonee Valley. The service does not provide its own housing to youth, but is instead a support service.

“Family violence is still the main reason that young people experience homelessness,” Ms Collins says. “If you looked at the data, it may not be number one, but that will be because young people often won’t identify that. 

“They may say that there has been a financial crisis, they may say there's been a family breakdown, but then once you start working with them, you understand that there has been an experience of family violence, either as a perpetrator, survivor or both, that has not really changed.”

Ms Collins says that once social workers start to unpack these experiences with a young person, the complex and varied reasons for their homelessness often arise.

This typically includes drug and alcohol misuse as well as mental health issues, most frequently schizophrenia, anxiety and depression.

But there’s a major barrier that often prevents Latitude from being able to connect young people with mental health services, social workers and other support services.

“There’s just no housing,” Ms Collins says.

“The west was once affordable in that you could access private rental at a reasonable rate if you were on a Jobseeker allowance. That’s no longer possible,” she says.

The 2021 Census revealed that of all homeless people across Victoria, 1 in 5 were located in Melbourne’s west.

The total number of homeless people in Melbourne’s west has increased by 40% over the past 10 years.

Young people approach Latitude because they want help with finding housing. Ms Collins says when they realise Latitude doesn’t have housing to provide, young people often walk away, missing out on the crucial support that Latitude offers.

She says this challenge has only emerged recently in light of the housing crisis.

"It's really problematic when you don't have access to housing to actually get that work done. Because the primary thought for that young person is, 'Where am I going to sleep tonight?' "

Since 2022, the average rent for a typical 2-bedroom flat has risen in all LGAs in Melbourne’s west, following a dip during the COVID lockdowns.

Simultaneously, the number of affordable housing dwellings available in the west has plateaued or sharply decreased in all LGAs.

“If young people have housing, then we know where they are. They know where they are. So we can then actually start working on all those issues that may have led to that experience of homelessness,” she says.

The longer a young person experiences homelessness, the more damage is created.

“That’s when you start to see impacts like mental health deteriorating. And if you’re not connected anywhere, that’s actually not being addressed,” Ms Collins says.

Providing early support, such as mental health counselling, access to safe and suitable housing, and assistance with education or employment, is crucial for vulnerable and at-risk youth who are beginning to face mental health challenges and homelessness. 

Ms Campbell recalls the mental health impacts she had encountered as a result of domestic violence and being homeless at such a young age.

She said, “I was depressed and I also had PTSD, but it's being brave and vulnerable and saying this is what's happened, and I just need help…it's difficult when you've got trauma to trust people, but sometimes when you really are at the lowest of your lows, you have no other option but to trust people.”

However, by accessing support from a psychologist at the Lighthouse Foundation early on, she found herself to be in a better position to heal. “Seeing a psychologist at Lighthouse made me realise that your past and your circumstances do not equal your future.” she said. 

Hobsons Bay is one of the local areas facing a crisis in mental health support, with a 2023 council campaign referring to the area as a youth mental health desert. The closest Headspace services available for youth to access mental health support are about an hour away by public transport, located in Sunshine and Werribee. Long waiting lists make it even harder for young people to get the help they need.

According to a map from the council’s campaign, there are 39 psychology services in the area. However, there is only one mental health service specifically for children and adolescents, and it is a private, fee-paying service.

As part of the campaign’s survey, the council gathered qualitative data about locals' experiences in accessing youth mental health support in the area. Common complaints included a lack of available appointment times, with many parents feeling lost about where to start in getting help for their child. Affordability was another major issue, as many services were out of reach financially.

Dr Jana Menssink, a researcher at Orygen says, “a lot of young people will be discouraged because they might be on a waitlist for a few months, see a clinician and then be referred to a different clinic, which is more specialised to have to be on a waitlist again, so that can be really challenging.” 

Additionally, individuals often had to travel to different parts of town to find the support they needed. Respondents described the “soul-destroying” process of trying to find services during times of great need, highlighting long wait times—one person reported waiting 18 months, while the nearest Headspace locations had wait times of up to a year. 

“Young people often…talk about how difficult it can be to access help in just getting to a clinic. So public transport can be unreliable, costly, take a really long time, and their parents might not be able to just, you know, shuttle them to appointments on a regular basis. So transport can be a really challenging, practical barrier,” Dr Menssink said. 

Many in the survey also noted that general counselling services were not specialised enough or did not provide the urgent help young people required, a concern echoed by a counsellor. One youth counsellor pointed out that the gap fee for local psychologists was around $100 per appointment, making it unaffordable for most young people.

Cost is a significant barrier when it comes to accessing mental health services. It’s not just about paying for a therapist; there are also expenses for seeing a GP for a referral or possibly a psychiatrist. 

Dr Menssink said, “the kind of rebate we have in Australia, of you know, getting $100 to $120 back on a therapy session, that's limited to 10 therapy sessions per calendar year, and we know that seeing a psychologist these days can cost anywhere from $200 to $300, so young people are then dealing with a lot of out pocket costs. 

“Maybe they can afford a few sessions. But if there are some more complex challenges someone's experiencing, or if it takes the young person a long time to trust a clinician to be able to open up, you know, they're going to be running out of those rebatable sessions pretty fast.” 

According to the Homelessness Australia report, over 3000 of the young people aged under 19 who presented to homelessness services did so alone.

Lighthouse gave Ms Campbell the tools she needed to rebuild her future.

“Susan Barton was at my wedding. My mum was at my wedding. Susan Barton is like my second mum,” she says.

If the content in this article has been distressing in any way, the following helplines can be good places to start in finding support:

 1800 Respect national helpline : 1800 737 732

 Lifeline : 24/7 crisis line: 131 114

 Beyond Blue : 1300 22 46 36

 Headspace : 1800 650 890

 Lighthouse Foundation : (03) 9111 7268