Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Youth homelessness is a crisis across Australia. Nearly 40,000 children and young people aged 15 to 24 are alone and homeless every year. I'll just let that sink in—40,000 kids with no parental support nor a roof over their heads. This crisis is growing. I recently met with delegates from Home Time, a national campaign advocating to fix this crisis. They alerted me to the youth housing penalty: flaws in our social services system that make it even harder for young people to access social housing.

There are three problems. Firstly, community housing providers are disincentivised to house young people. This is because the youth allowance is lower than other support payments. Community housing providers charge rent based on an applicant's assessable income, so providers receive significantly less rent if they house young people. Secondly, Commonwealth rent assistance is also calculated on income, compounding the financial disadvantage for providers to house homeless youth. Thirdly, youth housing projects struggle to compete for funding under the Housing Australia Future Fund, making them rare and underresourced.

If we want to give young people a fair chance at housing, we need to fix these problems. The minister has informed me that the government is reviewing the issue, but that's not good enough for the kids that are currently sleeping rough. We must act now to remove the penalty and give our kids a chance.