“How can you work on all the other things in your life if you don’t know where you’re going to sleep that night?
“If you don’t have a fixed address, how are you going to get your Centrelink sorted out?
“If you are a young person sleeping in your car, how are you supposed to get your uniform clean and get to work?”
They are some of the questions that regularly haunt Samaritans Rent Choice Youth Officer Siobhan Wilson.
After years of working in crisis accommodation, Siobhan says they are also thoughts that motivate her to help young people find safe, comfortable, affordable places to live.
“Rent Choice Youth is a Homes NSW product,” she says.
“Samaritans is an affiliated partner, which means we support young people onto the program, help young people meet the requirements to access the program, and advocate on their behalf.
“We can support 16 to 24-year-olds who are earning under $770 per week pre-tax (gross income).”
The program, she explains, is for young people “who are working or studying or have those desires”.
“It supports young people in private rentals, meaning those activating a lease or looking for a private lease arrangement.”
How it works
“Young people can access Rent Choice Youth for three years,” Siobhan says.
“For the first 12 months our young people pay 25% of their income towards rent, plus 100% of their Centrelink rent assistance.
“At the 12-month mark the amount they contribute increases and then again it increases every six months.
“The goal of the program is for young people to not need it [the assistance].
“The goal is for their income to increase to be sustainable without the support.
“The support is like a stepping stone.”
Samaritans Rent Choice Youth program assists young people zoned within Newcastle, Cessnock, Dungog, and Maitland City councils.
A young person may be referred by Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS), other Samaritans services, or directly by phone.
“We set up profiles for our young people, we ask them to complete our ‘Rent-it, Keep-it’ course, we walk our young person through a house inspection, show them what that looks like, and then we make contact with real estate agents and act as advocacy,” Siobhan explains.
“The rental market at the moment is really hard.
“If you haven’t rented before it’s unlikely that someone’s going to give you a chance if you’ve got no rental history, and this is the first time many of our young people are moving out of home, for work or study, or a number of reasons, and they have no history.
“They are on a low income compared to others in the rental market and we’re in a current rental crisis.”
Not all young people in the program are at risk of homelessness.
“We have a young man who can’t access Centrelink [payments] because his parents earn too much, even though his parents are remote and he’s working part-time and studying at uni fulltime,” Siobhan says.
“In this case, the program will help support him through his studies.”
Awareness is key, Siobhan adds.
“Unless you know about Rent Choice Youth you could be struggling, and you don’t need to be,” she says.
“As advocates for young people, landlords also know that they can contact us if there are any issues, that’s what we’re there for.
“This program is supporting our young people to develop the skills to keep going in life.
“To be able to support young people to do this is, for me, very rewarding.”
To learn more about Samaritans Rent Choice Youth program, visit https://www.samaritans.org.au/services/youth-services/rent-choice.