Homeless, pregnant, alone: Gypsy now helps others find a home

Half of the homeless children and young people who turn up in need of a bed are turned away by homeless services, according to a youth advocacy group.

They may end up couch-surfing, sleeping rough on the streets or returning to abusive homes.

Gypsy was 14 and Marija was 15 when they were each forced to sleep on the streets.

April 17 is Youth Homelessness Matters Day and advocates are raising the alarm that homeless youth and children are greater in number than the crisis beds that are available.

The now 20-year-old Gypsy, who wishes to keep her surname private, said that when she was 14-years-old, sleeping rough on the streets of Tamworth in NSW was a safer option than staying in her violent, abusive and drug-using home.

"It was traumatising and the possibilities of safety threats when you're sleeping rough out on the streets is so exponentially high ... being so young and so small," the now 20-year-old said.

"I was always in fear of being abused and being hurt."

Sometimes she couch-surfed at friends' or extended family members' homes.

And at 15, she found herself pregnant, stuck in an abusive relationship and still homeless.

She and her then boyfriend briefly moved back into her family home before moving out into their own home.

"Not long after the baby was born, we moved into our own home and the abuse kicked up a notch," she said.

Gypsy then made the best and hardest decision of her life - she left her partner for good.

"I reacted, I picked him [her son] up, I got out of there and I never went back."

With a young child, Gypsy knew couch-surfing wasn't sustainable and she would need to find something safer.

She heard about a housing provider in Tamworth and walked through the doors.

"Apparently, they had been here for years, and I never knew," she said.

"I was so amazed and a bit upset with myself as well at the same time because I knew if I had known earlier I could have done something sooner."

Gypsy's story has a happy ending. After going through temporary accommodation she eventually moved into her own place with her son in 2023.

She graduated with a Certificate IV in Housing and now works for the same community housing organisation who provided with her housing.

"I get to help people who were in the same position I was," she said.

Marija Rathouski was given an ultimatum by her father that forced her to flee her family home in Canberra during the school holidays before year 11 began.

With nowhere to go, the then 15-year-old turned to the streets for sleep.

"I remember being curled up in a ball and just trying to keep warm because also it's the middle of the night, so it's cold, especially in Canberra." Ms Rathouski, who is now 23 years old, said.

She found shelter in golf courses or sometimes wandered the streets at night and slept in the day.

When school returned in February, the 15-year-old's lifeline was telling a teacher that she had been homeless throughout the holidays.

"I went straight up to my teacher and I just remember bawling my eyes out telling her what I'd gone through over the summer holidays," she said.

She praised her school for the support they gave her, which allowed her to continue her education, and find emergency accommodation.

"I was constantly connected with something or someone ... if I was missing, people would be calling me," she said.

The housing services provided her with transitional housing for 18 months before giving her social housing during her early 20s.

In 2023, she purchased her own home and describes the feeling of breaking the homelessness cycle as a "buzz".

"I feel like I'll have this buzz for another 10 years... I never have to leave, and I never have to have an inspection from anyone else ever again."

Like Gypsy, she now works with homeless women and children to help them find transitional and emergency accommodation.

However, Ms Rathouski and Gypsy are the lucky ones.

Almost 40,000 children and young people turned up to a youth homelessness service last year but while 17,000 of them needed a bed, only half received one, according to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report.

"We are turning away one in two young people and children," youth homelessness advocacy organisation Yfoundations CEO Trish Connolly said.

"Our youth specialist homelessness services are overwhelmed and underfunded. It causes them deep distress to turn these young people away."

The National Housing and Homelessness Plan by the federal government is in its consultation phase, however, Ms Connolly says that a standalone plan needs to be created for children and young people facing homelessness.

An online petition by Yfoundations to the Australian Government to create a National Child and Youth Homelessness and Housing Strategy has more than 10,000 signatures.