Tyrah Chan-Hampton was sharing a room with her younger sister and infant brother while studying for her High School Certificate.

It was a stressful time for the Sydney teenager who had already experienced homelessness when she was younger.

“I was sharing a room with my little sister and also my little brother, which was very hard when I was about to be embarking on my first year at uni,” she said.

Then a solution emerged to ease the burden of being in a crowded home.

Ms Chan-Hampton moved into a “youth foyer”.

Run by the Foyer Foundation, these facilities exist in most states and territories and house youth aged 16–24 experiencing or at risk of homelessness for up to two years.

Their mission is to integrate housing, education, employment, and life skills support all under one roof.

The social work student, who also works as a case worker with an Indigenous organisation, said the housing support helped during “massive changes” in her life.

“I’m currently in my fourth and final year of study at uni. I don’t think I would be there [without it],” Ms Chan-Hampton said.

“I can have a house deposit. I can buy my own home soon. That’s a massive achievement for me at 21 to be able to do that.”

Youth foyers give ‘opportunity to thrive’

The 21-year-old Wiradjuri woman, who grew up in Sydney, says her case shows that foyers work.

She is not the only champion of youth foyers.

Matt Paterson is mayor of Alice Springs and he wants to see a facility in Alice Springs.

In the Northern Territory, national census data shows the rate of homelessness is 12 times higher than the national average.

“It’s about giving young people an opportunity to thrive going forward,” Councillor Paterson said.

Cr Paterson said his council would happily facilitate making land available to curb the more than 3,000 young people experiencing homelessness.

“If it gets to a conversation where they need land to progress the project, we’ll certainly have a conversation,” he said.

“We all want to play our part in this.”

Housing body NT Shelter’s regional coordinator for Central Australia, Annie Taylor, said in Alice Springs, support services were faced with tough decisions.

“We have services here in Central Australia who do what they can to support those young people,” she said.

She said the Commonwealth funding to each state and territory was unequal, given the higher rates of homelessness in the Northern Territory.

“So we’ve got a service system that is massively overstretched.”

New sites across the country proposed

The Foyer Foundation run facilities in every state and territory except for Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

Now they want to expand from 14 operational sites with another 16 proposed to the government.

Foyer Foundation chief executive Liz Cameron-Smith said the organisation had submitted a $184 million proposal to the federal government to fund 16 new sites in Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and Alice Springs.

She said, based on their results already, it would be money well spent.

“And they are also 60 per cent less likely to engage with the justice system.”

Federal Housing Minister Julie Collins did not respond to questions from the ABC about whether such a site would be funded in Alice Springs.

She also did not respond to questions about prospective funding for other sites.

In a statement, Ms Collins said her government had committed $91.7 million to youth homelessness.

“We will continue to work hard to ensure our broad and ambitious housing reform agenda is working across the board with more help for renters, more help for homebuyers and more help for Australians needing a safe place for the night,” she said.