Tackling youth homelessness

A home is so important. Housing is a human right. We all deserve a home where we feel safe and where we can go at the end of the day and close the door on the world outside. Young people especially need a safe home, but youth homelessness is on the rise in Tasmania, and that really scares me. We should be looking after our young people, not allowing them to struggle. So how do we do that? We need to build more homes to get more people off the streets and to get them out of the tents that are in our parks and out of the cars that are hiding in the dark. None of these places are a home. It's up to us to take the lead and do something about this situation.

Not all homes are a three-bedder with a picket fence, a clothesline out the back and room for a dog. Some homes are bigger. Some are smaller. Others are stacked on top of each other in an apartment block. My point is that we have to look at all the different options for housing so we can house as many people as possible. We have to consider more medium- and high-density developments in cities and large towns. Those homes must be sustainable—fitted with solar hot-water services and good insulation—and be well designed to eliminate or at least minimise as many of those bills that we're all struggling with at the moment. Councils, as the planning authorities, must work with us on this mission to beat homelessness and must approve developments for social and affordable housing.

I worked hard to get the government to guarantee Tasmania would receive 1,200 affordable homes as part of the Housing Australia Future Fund. We all deserve a home and a community that is equipped to support and protect its residents, and that's something that we're all here to do. That's the aim of all of us: to help the lives and the conditions of all the people that elected us here to parliament. But you know what? Our young people will vote one day as well, and they have the same right to home and community that we that vote do.