As she glances at infant daughter Willow, Chloe Harris reflects on the "ridiculous" experience of being homeless for the past year-and-a-half.
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"She's a good girl, but she's so unsettled," Ms Harris said.
"It doesn't matter where we go, because we're constantly moving it's hard for her to sleep at night."
Ms Harris, 20, who grew up in Berkeley, and Tyler Subotic, 19, from Albion Park have been couch surfing with various relatives for about 18 months while applying for rental properties.
"We've been looking for our own housing... There's just nothing - nothing," Ms Harris said.
"We've just been going from place to place; every three months we'd be moving from house to house," Mr Subotic, who works as a casual labourer said.
Ms Harris receives the Parenting Payment and Family Tax Benefit, while her partner is on Youth Allowance.
Mr Subotic said there had been "happy times" when their daughter was born eight months ago, but also plenty of hardships.
"Every time we apply for real estate, they'd say, 'no, you're too young', 'you don't have a rental history' or 'you have a baby (so) it wouldn't suit you'," Ms Harris said.
"Even just for a little granny flat, they're like, 'the owners don't want a screaming baby'," Mr Subotic said.
They also said more are services needed to be accessible for people in their situation.
"There's plenty more they can do," Ms Harris said.
During the past couple of weeks, the young family have been staying at the Wollongong Homeless Hub's temporary accommodation in Wollongong CBD.
"(Other services) when you go there, they can't help us in the way that we need help," Ms Harris said.
"Things like finding a rental property, and getting Willow sorted with playgroups and that kind of thing."
Mandy Booker, manager of Wollongong Emergency Family Housing and the Wollongong Homeless Hub said as of early next week, the family would be offered housing in one of their transitional properties.
The recently released National Report Card on Youth Homelessness indicated crisis-focused systems aren't working and government action during the past decade earned "a C-minus at best".
According to 2016 Census data, one-quarter of all people experiencing homelessness in 2016 was aged between 20 and 30 years.
Also, homeless youth (aged 12 to 24 years) made up 32 per cent of total homeless persons living in 'severely' crowded dwellings, 23 per cent of persons in supported accommodation for the homeless and 16 per cent of persons staying temporarily in other households.
Ms Booker said the report card reiterated that long-term solutions needed to be found to address homelessness, particularly for youth.
Regarding cases such as Ms Harris and Mr Subotic, Ms Booker said if "we don't do something about changing the direction for our youth to get some stability", it would create a "generational legacy" of homelessness, lack of stable housing and living below the poverty line.
She said while there were great services available within the Illawarra, a key to long-term stability was more housing stock being created.
"It's also about making sure we're supporting the youth payments, and making sure the affordable living (funds) for people, particularly in youth allowances, is actually going to allow them to go forward," Ms Booker said.
"Because with what the payments are at the moment, it's not sustainable."