Children as young as 12 turned away from Perth crisis accommodation

Crisis accommodation services for at-risk young people across Perth are bursting at the seams, and are being forced to turn away an average of 15 people each day, new data shows.

The Ending Child and Youth Homelessness Coalition – a collection of not-for-profits – revealed that between January and June, 19 youth accommodation services across the metropolitan area recorded 2653 occasions where they were unable to provide a young person with accommodation.

On average, 69 homeless young people were competing for 1.83 crisis beds in total. A growing proportion of that number are employed.

And on August 20 alone, 114 unaccompanied young people – categorised as 25 and under – were recorded as sleeping rough in both Perth and Rockingham.

On Monday, the Coalition released its 2027-28 Pre-Budget Submission, calling on the state government to take the opportunity to get an early start on building a system that “prevents homelessness wherever possible, responds quickly when it happens and helps young people find a safe and stable home”.

It developed five actions it would like the government to take, including investing $2 million per year on early intervention, and a further $350,000 to create a dedicated plan to end child and youth homelessness across the state.

The Coalition also requested $44.5 million in capital funding and $6.71 million a year to operate new crisis accommodation in Albany and Bayswater, plus $150,000 for a Broome business case and feasibility study.

Anonymous stories from those experiencing homelessness were included in the pre-budget submission, with words like dehumanising, alienating, and humiliating being used to describe their experience.

One person said that they did not want any more referrals because they could not “deal with the feeling of rejection”.

“I got my hopes up for nothing and left feeling not good enough,” they said.

Others described it as “living on the edge”, with every day exhausting to survive through.

Sector workers were also included in the pre-budget submission, with one saying they were turning away children as young as 12 and that “youth workers watch them walk away, knowing they face unimaginable dangers alone on the streets.”

“We are supposed to hold hope for young people, but it is so difficult when you see people who are being rejected over and over,” another wrote.

A third person said they wished they had more power, and that the government would “take us more seriously.”

“For young people experiencing homelessness, the consequences can be profound,” the Coalition wrote.

“Among a small group of 38 young people experiencing homelessness assessed in Perth and Rockingham, 26 per cent did not feel safe where they slept, 23 per cent said they had nobody they could rely on or who cared about them, and an alarming 83 per cent had experienced violence in the previous year.

Evidence has also shown that preventing homelessness works so as a Coalition, our goal is simple: Make child and youth homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring.”