Every night in Australia, thousands of young people go without a stable place to call home. Melbourne City Mission's third annual Youth Homelessness Snapshot, launched during Homelessness Week, reminded of a stark reality; that without an adequate supply of appropriate housing, nothing was going to change.
In June 2025, Brian M Davis Charitable Foundation supported an advocacy campaign called Home Time. Launching in March 2024, the campaign mobilised a national movement to unlock housing for 40,000 young people, and in under a year has delivered outstanding results.
Home Time's flagship win was its role in securing the National Housing Infrastructure Facility Crisis and Transitional Housing Program (NHIF CT). The campaign convinced the Federal Government to repurpose an infrastructure financing mechanism into a dedicated social housing capital fund, prioritising young people experiencing homelessness alongside women and children escaping family violence. Working with the University of Sydney, Home Time modelled the likely outcomes of youth housing investment and pinpointed exactly where existing funding settings were failing young people. Armed with that evidence, the campaign pushed for legislative change and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with government and Housing Australia to influence the design of the resulting $1 billion program, creating Australia's first dedicated national capital grants fund for youth homelessness, and a pipeline for future projects nationwide.
Home Time's second major breakthrough tackled a problem hiding in plain sight: the Youth Housing Penalty. This structural quirk, tied to Youth Allowance payment settings, has long made it financially unviable for community housing providers to house young people at all, regardless of how much need existed. Through sustained research, policy development and direct government engagement, Home Time secured a $60 million Federal Government commitment for a national youth housing supplement. In practical terms, that's roughly $6,000 per young person, per year, flowing to community housing providers, finally making youth tenancies financially viable, and opening the door to further private and industry investment alongside government funding. It won't solve youth homelessness on its own, but it is exactly the kind of structural fix that unlocks what's possible at scale.
None of this happened through government goodwill alone. Home Time grew into a genuine national coalition, strengthened by over 180 supporting organisations and thousands of individual members of the public all pulling the same direction. Most importantly, the campaign was underpinned by a strong group of youth advocates whose lived experience brought critical perspectives to the reality of youth homelessness in Australia. What followed was 20,000 supporter actions directed at Ministers and Members of Parliament, backed by sustained government engagement: parliamentary events, advocacy delegations, appearances before a parliamentary inquiry and committee, and ongoing policy discussions with Treasury, the Department of Social Services, Housing Australia and elected representatives.
"This is massive, and shows what we are capable of," Melbourne City Mission’s Head of Policy, Advocacy and Government Relations and Home Time’s Founder and Chair, Shorna Moore said this week.
For the Brian M Davis Charitable Foundation, it is a brilliant example of funding advocacy efforts aligning with the foundation’s purpose; achieving transformational change in the lives of young Australian. “It is clear from the Home Time campaign that philanthropy has a role in funding advocacy, particularly where the voices and experiences of young people effected by government policy are at the heart of the campaign.” Executive Officer Anita Hopkins said.
Housing and Homelessness Minister Clare O'Neil also joined in her congratulations, calling it a "brilliant campaign" and pointing specifically to the role lived experience played in securing the Youth Housing Supplement.
Home Time's story is a reminder of what evidence-based, coalition-driven advocacy can achieve for those who need it most, and the role philanthropy can play in enabling these much-needed reforms.