Homelessness Week 2026: what it is, why it matters, and what we’re doing about it
Every year, for one week in August, organisations and communities across Australia come together to shine a light on one of the most pressing social issues of our time.
This year, Homelessness Week runs from Monday 3 August to Sunday 9 August. And the theme couldn’t be more urgent.
Homelessness Action Now.
Homelessness Week is an annual campaign run by Homelessness Australia that aims to build community awareness and drive government action on homelessness. It’s a moment for organisations, advocates, and everyday Australians to raise their voices and make clear that the current situation is not acceptable, and that change is both necessary and possible.
At Youth Futures, Homelessness Week is one of the most important moments in our calendar. Not because it’s a campaign, but because it speaks directly to the work we do every single day, with some of the most vulnerable young people in Western Australia.
Young people aged 12 to 25 make up nearly a quarter of Australia’s homeless population. But most of the time, you wouldn’t know it.
Youth homelessness rarely looks like sleeping rough on a city street. It looks like a 16 year old texting a friend at 10pm asking if they can stay the night. It looks like a young person moving between relatives’ couches until the welcomes run out. It looks like staying in a situation that isn’t safe because there is genuinely nowhere else to go.
And when a young person loses stable housing, the consequences ripple outward fast.
Where will I sleep tonight? Who can I trust? Will I be safe? How do I attend school, finish my course, make my appointments, or simply keep going when I don’t know what tomorrow looks like?
For many young people, homelessness isn’t just the loss of a home. It’s the loss of stability at one of the most important stages of life. The routines, relationships, and opportunities that help young people grow are disrupted, replaced by constant uncertainty and the need to focus simply on getting through each day.
Forty years ago, a small group of locals in Joondalup saw young people in crisis and chose to act. They found a house, opened the doors, and Youth Futures was born.
Four decades later, we are a very different organisation, more experienced, more capable, and more equipped to meet the complexity of what young people face today. But the belief that drove those first doors to open has never changed. We don’t just provide a roof. We look at the whole picture.
At Youth Futures, we believe you cannot address homelessness in isolation. A young person who has a safe place to sleep but no support around them is likely to find themselves back in crisis. What actually makes a lasting difference is wraparound support. Housing and education and mental health and practical life skills, addressed together, by a team that knows each young person and stays alongside them for as long as they need.
That is the future we are working toward. A young person whose housing is unstable having a youth worker and social worker in their corner. A young person in 24/7 supported accommodation being connected to education and pathways forward. Because when a young person is struggling, the challenges they face rarely come one at a time.
In 2025, the Youth Futures team provided 9,553 nights of sleep across our transitional and 24/7 supported accommodation services. We supported 350 young people through our community school programs, awarding 230 full qualifications. We provided over 250 Emergency Relief sessions to young people in financial crisis across Perth. We walked alongside 66 young parents and children through The Nest, and supported 150 young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds through our SETS program.
Behind every one of those numbers is a young person who showed up, asked for help, and found someone on the other side who showed up right back.
This year’s theme isn’t just a slogan. It’s an invitation.
Homelessness Action Now means that change doesn’t only happen in parliament or policy rooms. It happens when individuals, businesses, and communities decide to show up. And there are more ways to do that than most people realise.
It looks like sharing a post and starting a conversation with someone who didn’t know youth homelessness looked like this.
It looks like a business donating surplus goods through programs like Goods360, putting phones and equipment directly into the hands of young people who need them.
It looks like a donor making a contribution that covers a young person’s Emergency Relief, a week of groceries, or a bus ticket to a job interview.
It looks like someone including Youth Futures in their will, ensuring that more young people have access to a safe place to sleep long after this week is over.
It looks like a community that refuses to accept that young people being turned away from support is simply the way things are.
Homelessness Action Now starts with one person deciding to do something. That person can be you.
You can donate to Youth Futures today and directly support a young person with Emergency Relief, a safe place to sleep, or the wraparound care that makes stability possible. Every dollar makes a difference.
If you or a young person you know needs support right now, please reach out.
