After being warned earlier this year there was a local homelessness crisis for young people aged between 14 and 18, Campbelltown Council decided to act.
It wrote to several stakeholders, including local MPs, seeking their support for the establishment of a youth refuge in the next two years.
They also wrote to the relevant NSW minister, Rose Jackson, who has responsibility for both homelessness and youth.
The crisis warning and the need for a refuge came from the Macarthur Homelessness Steering Committee in an advocacy paper released mid-year.
“Every night 300 young people 14-18 are experiencing homelessness of one kind or another,’’ council said in the letter sent out to the minister and others.
It pointed out that this rate was significantly higher than the NSW average (35 per 10,000 people).
But what made things worse here in Campbelltown and Macarthur, was the dire lack of crisis accommodation, including a youth refuge.
The median waiting time for crisis housing is around four months in Macarthur.
According to the steering committee, young people who experience homelessness are placed in unsupervised motels, often away from where they live (outside Macarthur).
Some are placed in refuges outside the area, which creates even more problems for these young people, says the committee, a point council repeated in its letters.
“Displacement from one’s community has significant wellbeing issues, including isolation, disrupted education and work, and discontinuity of welfare and support services,’’ it said.
The business paper for the first meeting of the new council contains some of the replies, including one from the minister, who responded to her ministerial colleague Anoulack Chanthivong, the Member for Macquarie Fields.
It seems that there will not be any funding commitments in the short term at least from the State Government for a youth refuge.
Minister Jackson responded by saying the government wanted to tackle homelessness head on to change it from being a crisis-driven system, and recommended Clubgrants funding for a youth refuge in Campbelltown or Macarthur.
Fellow Labor MP Nathan Hagarty responded to the council letter asking for his support for a youth refuge by saying he had attended the steering committee’s launch of the advocacy paper and was “concerned with the disturbing statistics presented’’.
He also wrote to Ms Jackson expressing his support for a local youth refuge.
It is not clear how the new council will respond when it considers the issue at its meeting next Tuesday, October 29 from 6.30pm.
