New Education First Youth Foyer in Wodonga

WATCH: Hear from Beyond Housing CEO Celia Adams about the new Wodonga Education First Youth Foyer.

Transcript

00:00Isn't it beautiful, what an amazing facility funded by Homes Victoria and in partnership

00:06with Junction Support Services, Beyond Housing, Wodonga TAFE and of course Brotherhood of

00:11St Lawrence but it is a phenomenal facility for young people homeless or at risk of homelessness

00:17in this area.

00:19What we know about homelessness is that homelessness largely occurs because of poverty.

00:25One of the best defences against poverty is getting a job and having an education, really

00:29difficult to do that if you're perhaps coming from an environment where you don't have somewhere

00:34safe, stable and affordable to live and that you don't have the supports wrapped around

00:39you to enable you to thrive.

00:42So it addresses poverty, it addresses I guess social isolation, addresses the inability sometimes

00:49for people to remain engaged in education and so what FOIA does is addresses all of those

00:55things in a really beautiful community environment with some amazing team to support them.

01:03The FOIA is about half full at the moment and the tenanting is staged very deliberately in

01:08a gradual way to enable each group of young people that moves in to find their feet, to

01:15build community and to feel safe and secure in their environment.

01:20So we'll continue to build on that and the team from Junction and Beyond Housing in particular

01:25working through filling the remaining rooms and it will be full very soon I imagine.

01:33There is student accommodation for 40 young people and there's onsite support and staffing

01:39from both Junction and Beyond Housing.

01:43Some of the features obviously independent living but some communal areas like communal

01:48kitchen, wonderful outdoor space and the building's been designed with some environmental features

01:56to really make it an affordable place to live and a beautiful place for young people to live

02:01and to thrive.

02:02Overall the dream we had the magic wand is that young people who are moving in today over the

02:08next couple of years, so two years at FOIA is possible, will move out into the community

02:14successfully, into their own properties, living independently and I guess further building

02:21on the skills that they've developed and the community that they've formed here.