Program in South Australia helping house-at-risk teens and reunite families

ABC NEWS (Australia)

More than 13-thousand children sought help from homelessness services last year. Forty per cent of them reported experiencing family breakdown and domestic violence. One long-running early intervention program in South Australia says it's stopping thousands of young people leaving home.

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00:00When Bidjara Gungari artist Hayley was 15, her relationship with her mother broke down

00:07to the point she felt she could no longer live at home.

00:11With the help of Ruby's youth worker Abram Kineen, she found a place of her own.

00:15It might not have been blood family, but they were my family.

00:19Ruby's provides crisis accommodation and family counselling to young people at risk

00:24of homelessness, with the aim of keeping them with family.

00:28New data shows three out of four participants remained at home two years after completing

00:34the program.

00:35There was also a reduction in hospitalisations around issues of drugs and alcohol.

00:41Each year since 2019, more than 1,000 12- to 17-year-old South Australians experiencing

00:47homelessness have sought specialist services without an adult.

00:52Brayden became homeless when he was 15.

00:55There needs to be more youth accommodations or more places where you can get crisis accommodation.

01:05Service providers say the housing crisis is making it harder for young people to find

01:10a home.

01:11That means that young people are staying in crisis accommodation for a lot longer, but

01:15it also prevents young people who are seeking crisis accommodation from accessing services.

01:19Advocates want more homes built for 15 to 24-year-olds.

01:23They say young people face discrimination in public housing, where rent is calculated as

01:28a percentage of income.

01:30It's prompted a two-year review of the sector.

01:32It's one of the most complex and challenging social issues of our time.

01:36hope for creative solutions to a serious problem.

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