Children as young as 12 turned away from Perth crisis accommodation

Crisis accommodation services for at-risk young people across Perth are bursting at the seams, and are being forced to reject an average of 15 requests for help each day, new data shows.

The Ending Child and Youth Homelessness Coalition – a collection of not-for-profits – revealed that between January and June, 19 youth accommodation services across the metropolitan area recorded 2653 occasions where they were unable to provide a young person with a place to stay.

On average, 69 homeless young people were competing for 1.83 crisis beds in total. A growing proportion of that number are employed.

And on August 20 alone, 114 unaccompanied young people – categorised as 25 and under – were recorded as sleeping rough in both Perth and Rockingham.

On Monday, the Coalition released its 2027-28 Pre-Budget Submission, calling on the state government to take the opportunity to get an early start on building a system that “prevents homelessness wherever possible, responds quickly when it happens and helps young people find a safe and stable home”.

It developed five actions it would like the government to take, including investing $2 million per year on early intervention, and a further $350,000 to create a dedicated plan to end child and youth homelessness across the state.

The Coalition also requested $44.5 million in capital funding and $6.71 million a year to operate new crisis accommodation in Albany and Bayswater, plus $150,000 for a Broome business case and feasibility study.

Anonymous stories from those experiencing homelessness were included in the pre-budget submission, with words like dehumanising, alienating, and humiliating being used to describe their experience.

One person said that they did not want any more referrals because they could not “deal with the feeling of rejection”.

“I got my hopes up for nothing and left feeling not good enough,” they said.

Others described it as “living on the edge”, with every day exhausting to survive through.

Sector workers were also included in the pre-budget submission, with one saying they were turning away children as young as 12 and that “youth workers watch them walk away, knowing they face unimaginable dangers alone on the streets.”

Another person said they wished they had more power, and that the government would “take us more seriously.”

Shelter WA chief executive Kath Snell said they were “pleading with government right now that we don’t see any more of this”.

“We should not be seeing young people and children sleeping rough in a state like WA. We are so incredibly rich, yet we are allowing this to happen,” she said.

“We have an opportunity now, with this budget coming up, for the government to get on board and support accommodation for those people that are doing it tough, those young people and children that are presenting to services and need help immediately.”

Aimee Robinson, from youth homelessness service Passages, said: “Day in and day out, our team see young people who have slipped through the cracks, where systems have failed to step in, prevent or intervene early enough in their lives, and now they’re rough sleeping and couch-surfing, often in extremely unsafe and unstable situations.”

“It’s also often devastating for our team, especially when we see an unaccompanied child who is particularly vulnerable, knowing that even though we did everything in our power to find them somewhere safe to stay, they’re still going to sleep on the streets that night,” she said.

“We can only hope that when we come back the next day, they are unscathed by that experience. But we know that’s not true.

“I think that’s why the sector has higher burnout rates and vicarious trauma – because we see the impact.”