Today, Thursday, 20th October, the much-anticipated Queensland Housing Summit will be held. On the eve of the Summit, PeakCare took the opportunity to release our own statement about matters of concern to PeakCare and our Member organisations that we hope will be attended to during the Summit. This statement focuses on the impact of the housing crisis on young people leaving the care of the State and includes some recommendations about actions that may be quickly undertaken to alleviate these concerns.
Whilst fully appreciative of the Government’s policy shift to extending the support provided to young people leaving care until the age of 21, our concern is that this widely-applauded initiative will be significantly diminished if young people, especially those who have been living in residential care, simply have no affordable or suitable accommodation available to them upon leaving care.
PeakCare sincerely thanks Member organisations who contributed advice about their experiences of the impact of the housing crisis on young people in their care. This advice was of enormous assistance in our formulation of PeakCare’s statement.
Beyond our concerns for this specific group of young people, PeakCare is also concerned about:
- families being unnecessarily drawn into the statutory child protection system when, through no fault of their own, they become unable (although willing if it were possible) to provide for the basic necessities of life for their children – food, clothing and shelter
- the impact on children in care being unable to be reunified with their families if their families are unable to provide them with adequate housing, and
- the negative impact on help-seeking behaviours of parents due to their fear that, in seeking this help, they may be reported to the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs and have their children removed from their care.
PeakCare looks forward to the Summit producing constructive solutions to the housing crisis. We congratulate the Government on implementing this initiative.