Tuesday, 22 September 2026

 Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (23:25): (2816) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing, Building and Precincts and is concerning the growing crisis of youth homelessness with cases of mental ill health in Victoria. The action I seek is for the minister to work with his ministerial colleagues to urgently develop and deliver a coordinated youth homelessness strategy alongside the mental health infrastructure that has already been promised but has not yet been delivered.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has revealed that 10,924 young Victorians aged between 15 and 24 turned to homelessness services last year and nearly half of them – 5276 – experienced mental health conditions so severe that they warranted hospital-level care. We are seeing a dangerous disconnect between mental health services and housing support. Young people as young as 16 are turning up at emergency departments in acute distress. They are suicidal and traumatised, and they do not have a safe place to go, yet they are discharged back to the public – homelessness. This should not happen. Every four days a young person dies while experiencing homelessness. This is not just a gap in the system but a failure. Our housing and mental health system cannot continue to operate in siloes as vulnerable young adults are falling through the cracks. Victorians need their government to do more. This Labor government is failing our youth.

What is worse is the failure has been identified before. In 2021 the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System made several clear recommendations, including the establishment of 500 dedicated mental health homes for young people in acute crisis, which the Allan, now Carroll, Labor government accepted in full. Many years later the Carroll Labor government still has not delivered these critical supports.

Service providers have also reported that young people are being denied care simply because they do not have a fixed address and in other care cases because their mental health issues are misunderstood or minimised. This is not acceptable or sustainable. Victorians deserve a government that will act with urgency in a crisis like this. Again, the Carroll government has not delivered these services. The 2026–27 budget includes some investment in housing and mental health, but it failed to deliver what the crisis demands: a coordinated, youth-focused strategy that brings these systems together. Will the minister please provide a comprehensive youth homelessness strategy along with the long-promised mental health homes for these youngest Victorians?