Aussie boy dies homeless and hungry after residing out of a cardboard field
A damning report has revealed the staggering number of homeless children who are dying on Australian streets every year.
Queensland‘s Child Death Review Board said kids were being lost across a residential care system that has ‘forgotten how to care’.
A young boy who lived out of a cardboard box with no food or clean clothes before he died on Queensland’s streets was just one of the tragic examples.
His death was among 70 identified in the annual report that Greens MP Max Chandler said showed the system was ‘completely broken’.
‘This should not be happening in a wealthy country like Australia,’ Mr Chandler said.
‘Stories like this boy’s are not unique and they are a result of a completely broken housing, homelessness and child support system.
‘The last line in this report really hits home for me and that’s “this is a system that’s forgotten how to care” and that doesn’t just apply to the residential care system, it also applies to our entire housing and homelessness system.’
The boy, who entered care after his sole parent died, had been exposed to domestic violence and abuse and was exploited by adults.
Greens MP Max Chandler (pictured) has unleashed on state and federal governments over a housing and homelessness system that has ‘forgotten how to care’
He spent hours unsupervised while staying in short-term accommodation and often returned in the early hours of the morning affected by drugs.
Before he died, the boy had stayed in four primary placements, spent 12 nights in a watchhouse and another nine in youth detention.
‘He was homeless, had no safe place to sleep, was living out of a cardboard box, had no place to shower, no clean clothes and no food to eat,’ the report said.
Child Death Review Board chair Luke Twyford said it was a sad situation.
‘What we’re seeing is children moving from place to place and being lost into a system that has forgotten how to care,’ he said.
‘Adults would at times exploit the boy, providing him with drugs in exchange for undertaking criminal acts.’
The boy was just one example of many in the report that reviewed the deaths of children known to the child protection system in the last 12 months.
It revealed that for many young people, residential care was unable to meet their needs for ‘connection, love, safety and stability’.
The number of children in residential care across Queensland has risen from 951 in June 2019 to 1,763 in June 2023 (pictured, a tent in Brisbane)
The report made nine recommendations, with a strong focus on the system’s role as a parent and how it responds to children and families in need.
It called for mental health support for all children in care after evidence suggested some referrals to services were closed if the child stopped actively engaging.
Mr Twyford said the state government needed to set up more prevention services to identify why children entered the child protection system.
Mr Chandler took aim at government agencies for their lack of empathy.
‘How is it that over the next 10 years property investors will get a $176billion in tax handouts from the government?’ he asked in a TikTok video on Tuesday.
‘How is it that the Commonwealth Bank can make a $10billion profit in the middle of a housing crisis but apparently the federal and state governments do not have enough funding to ensure things like this will never happen again.
‘If you think this boy’s life matters, and I think everyone in the country does, then we should agree that we should be fully funding our homelessness support services.
‘We can do it, we’re a wealthy country.’
The main cause of homelessness is domestic and family violence, housing instability and methamphetamine use according to a new report (pictured, tents in Brisbane)
The number of children in residential care across Queensland has risen from 951 in June 2019 to 1,763 in June 2023.
Of the 70 deaths reviewed, 29 were attributed to natural causes, five were the result of assault and neglect, three were attributed to drowning, six were suicide, eight were transport related, and seven were caused by other non-intentional injuries. A further 12 were unexplained.
At least 27 children were Indigenous and 45 were under the age of nine.
The main cause of their homelessness was domestic and family violence, methamphetamine use and housing instability.
‘We are paying people to create documents and plans and safety assessments, but no one is clearly performing a loving and caring parental role, and that has to change,’ Mr Twyford said.
Twyford was also overseeing a review of Queensland’s child protection system after plenty of failures were identified in the case of one of Australia’s worst paedophiles.
