St Kilda: Couple offers $1 lease to help homeless youth

A Melbourne-based couple have offered $1 per year rent, across two decades, to a youth homelessness charity’s St Kilda housing project. Picture: Social Garden.

An anonymous Melbourne couple have spent an extraordinary $3.2m buying an apartment complex that they’re now leasing to a youth homelessness charity for $1 a year.

The husband and wife, who requested to remain unnamed, bought the 15-apartment building that will be transformed into long-term housing for young women and gender-diverse people impacted by homelessness and the out-of-home-care system.

The venture is a follow-up to a similar project named Cocoon which not-for-profit organisation Bridge It collaborated with community housing provider HousingFirst to launch, also in St Kilda, in 2021.

RELATED: Housing crisis: Melbourne becomes Australia’s youth homelessness capital

Shocking 3 million Aussies at risk of homelessness

Up Rent Assistance now: Retirees face homelessness

Bridge It’s founder and chief executive Carla Raynes said within minutes of meeting the couple, they had committed to helping the charity to the tune of millions of dollars.

In December, when Ms Reynes was working on the concept for Cocoon #2 – as the new housing site will be known – Bridge It board member Jane Tewson invited her to meet the couple.

Originally from the UK, Ms Tewson co-founded the Comic Relief (Red Nose Day) charity movement alongside screenwriter and director Richard Curtis of Notting Hill and Love Actually.

In 2000, she moved to Melbourne where she has continued her involvement in numerous good causes including her own charity Igniting Change.

Bridge It founder and chief executive Carla Raynes describes the anonymous couple’s actions as “amazing”. Picture: Social Garden.

The first Cocoon long-term housing project, for young women and gender-diverse people impacted by homelessness and the out-of-home-care system, was launched in St Kilda four years ago. Picture: Social Garden.

Ms Raynes said she instantly clicked with the couple when Ms Tewson introduced them.

“I reckon probably 10 minutes into the conversation the couple were like, ‘Yes, we want to do this – we want to buy you a building so that you can create more homes for young people’,” Ms Raynes recalled.

“I just remember feeling really emotional that they could believe enough in our young people and believe enough in me and Bridge It to say yes that quickly,”

Many of the young people Cocoon helps have been in and out of residential and foster care since they were children. Picture: Social Garden.

Since the couple acquired the St Kilda property, Bridge It has signed a memorandum of understanding to rent the address for $1 each year across two decades.

The charity is now embarking on a renovation of the apartment building which is estimated to cost between $750,000 to $1m, with hope that much of the work will be done pro bono – much like the first Cocoon.

So far, Cocoon #2 has a planner, architect and interior designer signed up but they’re still trying to secure a builder.

A colourful mural of butterflies at Cocoon’s first housing site in St Kilda. Picture: Social Garden.

Ms Raynes is also hoping to film a television show about the construction process, plus document the significant improvement in young people’s lives when they have somewhere safe to live for 12 to 18 months.

“We see them go from not working, not in school, with serious mental health conditions in and out of psych wards, ” Ms Raynes said.

“Then when they come to us they stabilise, they get jobs, they finish year 12, they go to uni, they get into healthy relationships and they start dreaming big about the future.”

Ms Raynes said long-term programs like Cocoon were needed because most government-funded schemes to address youth sleeping rough offered up to eight weeks’ crisis accommodation, at most.

Almost 30 young people have been supported through the Cocoon program since 2021. Opening a second housing site will allow charity Bridge It to double this capacity. Picture: Social Garden.

The husband, from the couple who bought the St Kilda building to help Bridge It, said he and his wife’s wider family supported their philanthropic endeavour.

“We’ve been rather financially fortunate and have done well, and we want to contribute back into the community and help causes that will improve the outcomes for people in Australia,” he said.

He and his wife have been involved with other charitable projects, including through Rotary, but never anything as large-scale as Cocoon.

Ms Raynes says that 54 per cent of young people who leave residential care after their 18th birthday go on to experience homelessness within the following four years. Picture: file photo.

The man said one of the reasons his family wanted to support the project was because it directly addressed the causes of youth homelessness.

“The Cocoon program is amazing, and the people down there just amaze me with the dedication and the effort they put in for these young ladies,” he said.

Bridge It, which receives no government funding, hopes to establish five Cocoons across Victoria by 2030.

The organisation aims to eventually develop more Cocoon long-term housing sites in other Australian states, to help end youth homelessness.

MORE: Revealed: Australia’s most popular suburbs for first-home buyers

Wendy’s first Melbourne drive-through accidentally revealed at Bayswater North

Inside Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s impressive property portfolio

The post St Kilda: Couple offers $1 lease to help homeless youth appeared first on realestate.com.au.