“I struggled a lot with shame for a long time … it still sometimes stings just to say it,” she said.

“Even when my mum struggled with domestic violence and had to leave her house with me and my siblings, we never thought that was experiencing homelessness … there’s so much stigma around it and so much shame [surrounding] the word homelessness that many of us didn’t want to identify with that.”

Tyrah Chan-Hampton has experienced homelessness and housing insecurity. Source: Supplied

Youth homelessness across Australia

New analysis by the Foyer Foundation, an organisation that supports people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, has identified the 20 hotspots across the country where people aged 16 to 24 are without a home or struggling to find a place to live.

Analysis from the Foyer Foundation has identified the hotspots for youth homelessness in Australia. Source: SBS News

The Latrobe-Gippsland region in Victoria topped the list, with more than 1,000 young people experiencing homelessness.

“We see a mix of regional centres, some more remote communities, and some inner metropolitan areas … so I think what it shows is that the problem is very widespread and young people across the country are facing these challenges.”

The homelessness hotspots include rural, regional and metropolitan areas. Source: SBS News

What is behind the youth homelessness crisis?

Now, Foyer is calling on the government to fund additional youth foyers and medium-term housing to support young people and provide a pathway out of homelessness.

“And so what we see too often is young people cycling through crisis services because there’s no pathway for them out of the system.”

“If you’re a 15-year-old and things start to go wrong for you and there’s no one there to help you, no one there to support you, no one to help you get your life back in order, you may well face long-term disadvantage in so many ways,” he said.

‘Absolutely nowhere to go’

She said being supported by her case worker and securing a place in a youth foyer for two years changed her life.

“You have young people living in their cars and living on the street, living in crisis accommodation, trying so hard to get out of it, but there’s just genuinely nothing available for that young person to go to.”

What is the government doing?

They added that the National Housing Infrastructure Facility has also received an additional $1 billion in federal funding to support crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children experiencing domestic violence, and for youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness.