Larissa Davis, 17, from Bega has experienced sleeping rough firsthand.
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Homeless since January, Larissa has lived between houses, either with friends or people she knew, but each of those options was short-lived or insecure.
"I was homeless for a few weeks and I was just sleeping in my car.
"I had to sleep in the driver's side and had to make room behind me so I could lay the seat down.
She would only eat fruit for dinner and would oftentimes have only one meal per day. She said that occasionally she would also eat breakfast.
Ms Davis couldn't afford to eat out at a restaurant at the time as she said she was waiting for her pay and her supplemental Centrelink Youth Allowance payments to come through.
"I got put in hotels a couple of times [from local support services] and I paid for one when I needed a shower.
"I just stayed in my car down the road from work and just went to work."
Ms Davis works on a Bega district dairy farm and said a friend who lived down the end of the road was her safety net throughout the evening if she was feeling scared or unsafe.
"If I needed someone he could come stay with me."
Despite the small security and peace of mind her friend could offer her, Ms Davis felt afraid.
"I felt scared, because I'm scared of the dark and lonely, I just wanted people to be there or something."
- Larissa Davis
Ms Davis put in applications for a number of rentals in Bega and Merimbula but her efforts were to no avail.
"I put in applications for rentals. I put some in for all the Bega and Merimbula rentals. I only put in for the rentals for up to $300 because that's the closest that I could afford."
Two weeks ago she was finally able to find a temporary six month solution through the Department of Housing.
A caseworker from the South East Women And Children Services assisted her in securing a unit to rent.
In August Ms Davis will be moving to Western Australia to work in the mines with her pop, but for now she feels glad to have a temporary affordable housing solution.
"I feel a lot better because I can have a shower when I want and I can cook my own food, because I didn't eat much food when I was in my car."
Youth Homelessness Matters Day (YHMD) is being held around the country today, Wednesday April 21.
The day shines a light on an issue that is only on the increase with the rental shortages and price hikes happening all around regional Australia.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that young people make up 24 per cent of the homeless population across Australia.
The price of rental properties along the NSW South Coast has increased by 25.7% in the last year which has also had a direct impact on young people's access to affordable housing.
The median weekly price for a rental in the Bega Valley is about $400 per week, which is a 14.29% increase in price since March of last year.
"The impact of the rental shortage on young people is that they are pretty much on the bottom of the heap when it comes to approvals... there's a lot of people that will get approved before a young person does," said program manager for the South East Youth Accomodation Service with SEWACS Kylie Furnell.
Ms Furnell said the true rate of youth homelessness is hidden due to a lot of youth who are "couch surfing" or staying with family or friends and might be left off the official census data.
She is currently dealing with around 100 cases of youth homelessness in the Bega Valley area and said it was the most dire state of youth homelessness she had ever seen.
The organisation assists young people with having conversations around boarding with local people, using the products that Housing has got to increase their chances of securing a rental and in dire straights she refers youth to the refuge in Moruya or further afield.
And the housing shortage isn't just affecting those who may have traditionally been most at risk for homelessness.
Ms Furnell said historically there may have been co-issues such as mental health concerns, domestic violence or drug and alcohol issues, but that this has changed in the last 18 months to two years.
"Usually before that there was also some additional issue but now we're getting to a point of just straight out homelessness.
"They might still be engaged with education or have a part-time job and so they could be tracking very well in all other areas but homelessness, just because of one or two conflicts it can result."
Daniel Strickland from Bega's Mission Australia branch said the organisation only worked with families who fall into the category of youth, but that young parents may often have more insecure job market opportunities.
He said due to the increase in displaced people due to the bushfires, as well as people choosing to relocate from larger metropolitan areas due to increased flexibility around working from home, the young families he works with are getting pushed further and further out of the rental market.
"Young people are sort of pushed down the list. If you're a landlord and you're looking for tenants... [you are looking for] someone who has a rental history and unfortunately a lot of the young people we work with don't have that history."
Acting service manager at Headspace Bega Andrew D'Arnay said homelessness had always been an issue for youth in the Bega Valley, but that it's currently on the increase.
"We at the moment are definitely seeing an increase in the amount of young people who are coming in and are identifying homelessness or the risk of homelessness as an issue."
A recent report conducted by Headspace found that in the last three months, 8.6% of young people accessing the service said accommodation was either an issue for them or that they have short term or unstable accommodation.
Everybody's Home, an NGO campaign advocating for better management of Australia's housing system said the housing affordability crisis was even more dire for those on Youth Allowance.
"A person on Youth Allowance looking for a share house can afford less than one per cent of rentals, said Everybody's Home national spokesperson Kate Colvin.
"Across all of Australia, just four rental listings out of 77,000 in December last year were affordable to someone on Youth Allowance.
For a single person without children who is 18 or older and lives away from the family home, the fortnightly Youth Allowance payment is $512.50.
So what are the solutions?
In order to improve the state of affairs around housing in the area Ms Furnell said she would like to see three things done:
- A refuge built in the Bega Valley so her organisation could have more time to work with people to make a difference
- More social housing investment from the state government
- A government inquiry into Airbnb and acknowledgement of the choking situation it has raised for rental properties
"People need to take off a blinkered view of youth and start thinking if they have a spare room that they might be willing to have a young student or person come into.
"There could be a lot more enrichment with that relationship, if they could just view young people with slightly different glasses than the tainted ones that they see."
The youth program at SEWACS will also soon be running a "Housemate speed date".
"The idea being to match up people who are looking to rent or might have a spare room to have a little meet and greet and talk about what they have in common and get people ready to apply for properties, so teaching them the skills to do that too," Ms Furnell said.
Ms Furnell has also developed a free app called Skillbot. "It's like a support worker in an app."
The app is a tool for young people to find what support is out there for them and to access general living skills like how to apply for a property.
People can also use Askizzy to find out what support services are available to them in their local area.