Reflection on National Homelessness Week
Aug 20, 2020
This year the theme for Homelessness Week was Everybody Needs a Home. National Homelessness Week ran from the 2nd – 8th August to create awareness and educate community on the impacts of being homeless.
The timing for this theme could not be more relevant than right now, as Victorians are in Stage 4 lockdown and other states throughout Australia are working within the boundaries of social restrictions in place while potential further lock downs loom.
Whitelion serves highly vulnerable, high risk young people aged 14-24 years, of whom many have been impacted by complex and chronic disadvantage including homelessness and the often highly disruptive home environment of out of home care.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics define Homelessness as “a lack of suitable accommodation alternatives. It is a problem in our communities that goes beyond ‘rooflessness’ and a lack of access to safe shelter”.
The experience of homelessness includes vulnerable people living in temporary accommodation, including residential housing units, couch surfing or sleeping in a car. Whitelion works very closely within the cohort of young people who have been affected by or still living without a stable home or anywhere to sleep at night. Tragically 2 out of 5 people who are homeless are under the age of 25.
The three leading causes of homelessness in our communities, according to Mission Australia, are family violence, mental health issues and sudden life changes in one’s circumstance. The young people Whitelion supports are no strangers to these experiences.
Whitelion’s vision to support young people at risk by building positive connections and pathways to work drives us to work hard every day – however when a young person experiences homelessness, other life-affirming goals get pushed aside. A critical part of being 'work ready' and able to maintain a job is to have a stable base, somewhere safe to go home to after work. A significant part of the work we do at Whitelion is helping young people stablise their housing before we start working on positive connections and pathways to work.
An example of our work in this space is the Southern Homeless Youth Association Program and you can learn more about this from Whitelion youth worker Helen here.