This week marks Homelessness Prevention Week. A week earmarked to raise awareness about homelessness and surrounding issues in Australia.
There are over 105,237 people experiencing homelessness in Australia*. That’s 1 in 200 Australians living in shelters, boarding houses and temporary accommodation or on the streets.
Homelessness can have huge social impact on our community but for those personally experiencing living without a home (particularly those aged under 25), they are also more likely to experience anxiety and depression, and the longer they are on the streets the more sever and persistent mental illness becomes.
At Teen Challenge, we see many of our students that come through our program have experience homelessness or are at high risk of becoming homeless. While most suffer an addiction, the addiction is most often a subsequence of mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and/or physical and physiological abuse.
There are 1 in 6 young people (aged 15-24) living in poverty, according to ABS data. That is a large number of young people susceptible to homelessness, mental illness and potentially addiction.
Teen Challenge QLD will continue to offer safe accommodation and support to those young people struggling to get off the streets, struggling to overcome their issues, struggling to break addictions.
How can you help?
*Data sourced from www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au