The poroject is part of an initiative by a specialist youth homelessness service on the New South Wales Mid North Coast.

The organisation, YP Space, purchased a disused caravan park at Kempsey and secured old cabins, which had been damaged during flooding at Port Macquarie in 2021, to refurbish and transport to the site.

Over the past 18 months, YP Space has been transforming the old caravan park into affordable housing for at-risk young people aged between 16 and 25.

After a series of delays, and with strong support from the local community, the first three repaired cabins are now on-site and registered as crisis housing.

YP Space chief executive Caleb Rose (Above) said it was an exciting step forward, and a model which could be adopted in other regional centres around the country.

"It's nice to be able to put a small dent in youth homelessness and it's also nice to show it can be done," he said.

"There are some proactive solutions available to us, you just have to get up and do them, and hopefully this raises further awareness not only around the issues, but also around potential larger scale solutions."

Further housing planned as demand soars:

With the first lodges up and running, construction work is underway to lay the next three cabins, which will be used as more long-term affordable housing.

The plan is to eventually have 16 cabins on the site, which will significantly add to the amount of housing YP Space is able to offer and meet an urgent need.

Mr Rose said YP Space operates two other crisis refuges, one in Port Macquarie and one in Kempsey, each with five beds.

"At any given time, we would have around 80 young people being directly case managed, sometimes we may have a waiting list because demand is so high," he said.

YP Space outreach manager Deb Tougher said as the cost of living continued to rise, youth homelessness was also increasing.

"A couple of years ago we were given the rate of approximately 300 young people over both Port Macquarie and Kempsey experiencing homelessness every night," she said.

"I believe it has increased almost double since the floods, fires and the COVID pandemic.

"Youth homelessness is on the rise and there's just not a lot of private rentals out there that meet the needs of young people and that they can afford with prices gone up so much, it's almost impossible.

"It is a hidden problem. Most of our young people don't sleep rough, so they aren't visible to the public eye — they are couch surfing — but even the numbers of our young people sleeping rough are going up, the situation is getting that dire."

YP Space youth case worker Leish Morrison said there was a "phenomenal need" for the new cabins.

"I've been doing this role for over 10 years and I have found over that time the cost of living has skyrocketed so much, young people are coming to us for electricity vouchers, food vouchers, 10 years ago they weren't doing that," she said.

"The model we have created here can be replicated across all sites of NSW and nationally … it's a big area of a caravan park, it provides affordable housing and is a solution to end youth homelessness." 

YP Space is now hoping to secure extra funding to adequately staff the site's expansion.

"One of our challenges is to provide sufficient supervision on this site, to get to that mass of 16 cabins, which will require 24/7 staffing on site," Mr Rose said.

Last week the federal government announced a $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator fund, to deliver thousands of new social homes across Australia.

Original Story By | Emma Siossia