One Year of Home: Celebrating Brentwood’s First Anniversary

Brentwood is Youth Futures’ in-reach supported accommodation program for young people aged 16–25 who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. It provides flexible, trauma-informed, person-centred case management alongside active tenancy support — helping young people not just find a place to stay, but build the stability and skills for long-term independence.

At the heart of Brentwood is a supportive landlord approach: a model that works with young people when tenancy challenges arise, rather than against them. It’s an approach grounded in the belief that with the right support, young people can sustain their homes and thrive.

There’s a moment Rachael Nudds, Head of Homelessness Services, still thinks about. It was around Liz’s first or second day on the job. Rachael pulled her aside. “I need to take you to Brentwood,” she said. What Liz saw when she arrived was, in Rachael’s words, “the bare bones of what was.” Empty rooms. Potential without shape. A challenge that hadn’t yet found its form.

That was a year ago. Last week, those same walls held a morning tea — laughter, speeches, a community garden out back, and thirteen young people who have called this place home.

The transformation didn’t happen by accident.

Brentwood exists because a gap existed. Young people aged 16 to 25, experiencing or at risk of homelessness, often find themselves caught between services designed for children and systems built for adults. They need something different: flexible, personal, and genuinely alongside them.

Youth Futures’ answer was Brentwood — an in-reach supported accommodation program grounded in trauma-informed, person-centred case management. Not just a roof, but a relationship. Not just a tenancy, but a pathway.

Programs are only as strong as the people who show up for them every day. From the beginning, that meant Leah and Heather — Brentwood’s caseworkers, and by all accounts, its beating heart. The early days asked a lot of them. They gave more.

They were supported by a wider network stretching across Youth Futures — housing support workers, wellbeing staff, finance, HR, and operations teams working quietly in the background to keep everything moving. Then there’s the partnership with the Department of Communities, without whose advocacy Brentwood simply wouldn’t exist.

Thirteen young people. Two thousand, six hundred and fifty-four nights of safe, supported accommodation. Nearly 70% of residents aged between 18 and 20 — exactly the age bracket that so often falls through the cracks.

Each of those nights represents something that can’t be captured in a spreadsheet: a young person with a key in their hand, a door they could close, a place that was theirs.

Out the back of Brentwood, there’s a community garden. It wasn’t there at the start. It grew — the way communities do — slowly, with tending, over time.

For those who were there from the beginning, it’s become something of a symbol. The bare rooms are furnished. The program has found its rhythm. And the young people living here haven’t just received support — they’ve shaped the place itself.

As Brentwood turns one, the team looks ahead with excitement and ambition — committed to reaching more young people, deepening their impact, and continuing to build a place young people are proud to call home. The best, it seems, is still to come.