Could community-led responses prevent youth homelessness?
Community is often the missing link in preventing homelessness, writes Jethro Sercombe.
Before I worked in social design, about 20 years ago, I kicked off my career in the youth homelessness sector. Those experiences became my foundation.
This week I had the joy of facilitating Shelter WA’s Homelessness Prevention Forum which included an excellent presentation from Dr Peter Mackie about his Typology of Homelessness Prevention and work with the Welsh government.
It got me thinking - again - about how community is so often the missing link in preventing homelessness.
“The opposite of homeless isn’t ‘housed’. The opposite of homeless is ‘connected’.”
- Elise Jorgensen, Amber Lee and Si Lappin, our Ending Youth Homelessness crew from ThirdStory’s Social Design Academy (SoDA) last year.
What makes a difference?
For 2025’s Homelessness Week, I've been reflecting on how to bridge this missing link - and whose work is doing this well right now.
🛋️ The Foyer model is known for strong outcomes with young people. Yes we liked to think we were pretty clever at Foyer Oxford. But truthfully, the real magic was in the community of young people themselves, lifting each other up, moving out together.
📚 The Geelong Project taps the education system to identify and support young people at risk—because educators know them, deeply and beyond the classroom. Community again.
🏘️ When we worked on the early design of Homestretch WA (taken forward so brilliantly by Andy Kazim and Dr. Russell Thom), one of the gaps we tried to fill was community. We pitched a kind of micro-board model. And at Shelter WA’s Homelessness Prevention Forum, Dr Peter Mackie spoke about the power of ‘families of choice’ in supporting young people leaving care - but are we achieving that?
I have often found myself wondering: what if we flipped our thinking on couch surfing? Instead of seeing it as the first step into homelessness, what if we saw it as a community-led response preventing homelessness, keeping young people housed and connected? That shift in framing could open up a world of new options - and at ThirdStory we’d love to explore this concept further.
Our homelessness services can set goals, and do brokerage, and teach life skills - but can we recognise these natural networks around young people before they become homeless? And can we rebuild them when things have gone wrong?
Contact us
Want to talk about approaches that show potential to end youth homelessness? Get in touch with Jethro Sercombe Director, Innovation Practice at Jethro.sercombe@thirdstory.org