Australia is trying out tiny housing as a way of combating youth homelessness.
Estimates put the number of young, homeless Australians at about 27,000 each year. There is also a big overlap between homeless adults and people who first experienced homelessness while young.
This is according to Jo Swift, the CEO of Kids Under Cover – a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to preventing youth homelessness.
“If we don’t get in early, we know that homelessness can become a trajectory for life because many homeless adults have had their first experience as a child or young person,” Ms Swift told ABC news.
Many of these children are displaced mostly through family conflict, overcrowding and poor conditions.
Kids Under Cover intervenes by preventing the homelessness in the first place. They install tiny houses in the backyards of family homes, thus providing the young person at risk their own space to sleep and study.
The organization is still a long way from meeting demand of such accommodations. By their estimates, 850 young people need urgent intervention right now, but they can only help a fraction of that.
So far, The Kids Under Cover program has installed 16 studio apartments in Mildura and Swan Hill, providing decent housing to 22 local kids. You can help accelerate the program by making a donation.
State governments are also starting to help out, with the Victorian government in particular providing $6.5 million for 95 new portable studios.
