The number of children in Western Australia experiencing homelessness and poverty has sky-rocketed, with two separate reports painting a bleak picture for young people. In Perth, teenagers and young people have virtually no chance of securing crisis accommodation, with just one bed for every 70 in need.
00:05My father left due to substance, so I've been living on the streets, behind shopping centres, couch surfing.
00:14In the past decade, she's been turned away from crisis accommodation more times than she can remember.
00:20You feel like you're not even a person, you feel like you're just a waste of space at the end of the day.
00:26Her story is not uncommon.
00:28Services are having to turn young people away when they're reaching out at a very, very critical time.
00:34It's heartbreaking for the young people, it's heartbreaking for the services.
00:37Across the state, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates there are 700 unaccompanied children and young people homeless every day.
00:46In the Perth metro area, there are just 32 youth crisis beds available.
00:52Dozens vying for each of those beds.
00:54We have uncovered by bringing all the data together and bringing all the experiences together of the organisations that this picture is much more dire.
01:03And that's the reason why we have our 10 year strategy, all paths lead to a home.
01:07That's led to a range of investments including $25 million across 24 service agreements.
01:14Frontline services say it's not enough.
01:17We are underfunded by at least threefold just to meet current demand and that's just the young people and children we know.
01:26Findings from a separate report released today paint an equally grim picture for the state's youth.
01:32The Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre estimating around one in six children in WA are now living in poverty.
01:40It backs up and proves what we've been seeing for the last couple of years that these numbers are increasing and they're not slowing down.
01:47Experts are calling for governments to better measure child poverty and set targets to address an invisible issue.
01:54It's invisible because we don't keep any stats, we don't keep any official stats.
02:00Oblique reality in the nation's richest state.
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