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<\/p>\nOn stage, with a guitar in hand, Kesh Fernandez reconnects to a “missing part” of himself.<\/p>\n
In Haven22 \u2014 alongside partner Jules Gabor \u2014 he’s found purpose in creating a space where young people can produce their art and tell their stories.<\/p>\n
They’ve held queer proms, theatre performances, and youth gigs.<\/p>\n
The organisation came about after seeing a lack of places to participate in Darwin’s music and arts scene.<\/p>\n
It’s something he wishes he had when he most needed it.<\/p>\n
When even owning a guitar was out of reach.<\/p>\n
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Jules and Kesh are creating an art project to empower young voices in Darwin. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Raiyn finds a similar joy inside the classroom.<\/p>\n
Working as a teacher’s aide in a school-based apprenticeship, she wants kids to see they “deserve the world”.<\/p>\n
In doing so, she hopes to be the adult she looked for at their age.<\/p>\n
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Raiyn lost her home after bushfires in 2019. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n
The pair’s bright and determined personalities stand in stark contrast to the stereotypical portrait of homelessness.<\/p>\n
But, in reality, home for them once meant spare bedrooms, couches, or motel rooms.<\/p>\n
Family violence, a worsening housing crisis and poverty are all key contributors<\/a> to a rising youth homelessness emergency.<\/p>\n People aged 12-24 make up almost one-quarter of the reported homeless population, with 43,226 people under 25 years of age seeking homelessness support in 2024-25.<\/p>\n Stories like those of Kesh and Raiyn suggest that the number is likely higher, with hidden homelessness remaining largely under-reported.<\/p>\n But their stories also lay bare the hopes of young people facing homelessness \u2014 an ambition to be more than a statistic.<\/p>\n Teenage life ‘stripped away’Support for young people and familiesThe Butterfly Foundation<\/a>: National helpline 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673), 8am-midnight (AEST\/AEDT), 7 days a week\u00a0ReachOut Australia<\/a>: Confidential online peer support for young people and online resources for wellbeingHeadspace<\/a>: Centres in each state and territory or check out eheadspace<\/a> for online supportThe Kids Helpline<\/a>: 24-hour support on 1800 55 1800Lifeline<\/a>: 24-hour support for all Australians on 13 11 14<\/p>\n After fleeing an unsafe home, Kesh moved into four houses over six months.<\/p>\n It meant sleeping on strangers’ couches or paying what little rent he could afford with a casual job.<\/p>\n The teenager \u2014 who should have been enjoying his final moments of year 12 \u2014 was instead plunged into uncertainty.<\/p>\n “Where do I go from here? What’s next for me?” Kesh, now 20, remembers feeling.<\/p>\n “At the same time, I was figuring out how I was going to survive my exams, how I was going to take all the work that I’d done in my previous high school years so that I could get to a position where I could actually graduate.<\/p>\n “It was a really dark time for me.”<\/p>\n Kesh found himself growing up faster due to the financial and emotional strain. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n While his schoolmates planned trips to Bali, his own world became fixated on money.<\/p>\n Concerns beyond his age, such as affording food, were persistent.<\/p>\n “How can I make more money so that I can become more stable and I feel like I can rely on myself more?” Kesh says.<\/p>\n “Those were the questions that were going through my head.<\/p>\n “I feel like all the normal things that you do when you’re a teenager \u2014 that was stripped away from me.”<\/p>\n Even music \u2014 his one lifeline \u2014 became harder.<\/p>\n Young couple find shelter in a caravan after being left homeless<\/a><\/p>\n Chloe Hume and Trent Kiely are part of Australia’s homeless population, but a caravan by a river has offered them refuge from housing stress.<\/p>\n Saving up for a guitar became one of his biggest goals.<\/p>\n “I had to keep my possessions very minimal because I didn’t have the capacity to carry a lot,” he says.<\/p>\n “I couldn’t decorate my room in case they told me I had to leave the next day, or in the next hour or so.<\/p>\n “And more times than not, that happened.<\/p>\n “They would say ‘oh my family’s coming over, you can’t stay in this room anymore’ \u2026 or ‘the rent you’re paying isn’t enough’.<\/p>\n “Every day was a waking nightmare of ‘am I going to have to leave today?'” Kesh said he found comfort in counselling hotlines that helped him talk out his experience. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n ‘Just me against the world’<\/p>\n The Cobargo bushfires burnt down the home Raiyn was living in with her family.<\/p>\n That was six years ago.<\/p>\n Since then, she’s couch-surfed and house-hopped.<\/p>\n But what she remembers most is life in a motel.<\/p>\n The two small bedrooms, a cramped kitchen countertop, and her mother washing clothes in the sink.<\/p>\n Raiyn tried to tell herself \u00a0the experience would make her stronger. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n “It was really difficult because I couldn’t have proper dinners,” she says.<\/p>\n “My class would make food at school, and I would be able to take some home.<\/p>\n “That was my life.<\/p>\n “I woke up, and that was my reality every single day.”Every four days a young homeless person dies. Advocates want urgent reform <\/a><\/p>\n Every four days a homeless person aged between 15 and 24 dies, and the majority of deaths are due to suicide.<\/p>\n Part of her daily routine became looking at real estate online, even though she wasn’t old enough to create her own account on the sites she scanned.<\/p>\n The circumstances were enough to drive her to anger.<\/p>\n “I didn’t understand why I didn’t have the basic needs compared to everybody else,” she says.<\/p>\n “No-one could understand, it was just me against the world.<\/p>\n “That’s exactly how it felt.”<\/p>\n Raiyn says the experience often left her feeling jealous and angry at others. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n Art, education, and dreaming big<\/p>\n Kesh is trying to move on from his childhood, but the trauma of homelessness isn’t easily undone.<\/p>\n He says he has a place to stay now, but even that doesn’t feel secure.<\/p>\n “I feel like I’ll always be homeless,” he says.<\/p>\n “It was such a significant part of my teenage years that I’ll just carry that feeling along with me no matter where I go.”<\/p>\n One thing he thinks would have improved life during that period was community.<\/p>\n It’s why he started Haven22.<\/p>\n Haven22 held Darwin’s first Queer Youth Prom. (Supplied: Kesh Fernandez)<\/p>\n Since doing so, he’s been able to dream \u2014 something that had been put on hold for so long.<\/p>\n “It almost gave me back my home, in a way, because this was something that felt permanent,” he says of Haven22.<\/p>\n “I could rely on it.<\/p>\n “It would be there for as long as I would continue to work on it, and even after, with the impact that it leaves behind.<\/p>\n “Being able to pour myself into something after a period of time where I felt like I had nothing, that was what became everything.” Raiyn says being homeless felt like a burden on her alone. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n It is hard for Raiyn to encapsulate how homelessness changed everything.<\/p>\n “It used to be just a word to me,” she says.<\/p>\n “You don’t know it unless you’ve lived it.<\/p>\n “It is something that people go their whole lives without experiencing.<\/p>\n “I’m only 17, and I’ve lived six years of it.”<\/p>\n But from here, her plan is clear \u2014 go to university and live abroad.<\/p>\n Homelessness won’t define her.<\/p>\n “I just want to go to uni, like every other teen, finish and travel, and have a family,” she says.<\/p>\n “I’m going to live my best life.<\/p>\n “I’m going to pursue everything I want to do.”![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/a7b7fda89a94d99faba9602c6e5e82e0.jpeg\")
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