For Rhiannon*, the last three years have been a first-hand tour through the housing crisis.
Forced to leave home at 17, she’s moved between crisis hotel accommodation, transitional housing and couch-surfing after a share house didn’t work out.
At her lowest point, she was spending the night in front of a shop in Brisbane’s CBD. She couldn’t sleep.
“I didn’t want to be assaulted or anything like that,” Rhiannon said. “You’re very vulnerable.”
She didn’t feel much safer during an extended stay at a backpacker hostel, where she said drug use was rife among guests. Many people there were 15 to 30 years older than she was.
(By social affairs correspondent Norman Hermant)
