Jennifer Harris has spent almost one fifth of her life without a home and now fears the same for her son.
Ms Harris lived in a rental property with her son 15 years ago, but when their lease ended at short notice it led to almost a decade of homelessness.
"We had nowhere to live. We slept in my car, stayed in caravan parks and even started living in pubs," Ms Harris said.
Without any luck on the rental market, Ms Harris had to make the most difficult decision of her life to help her son.
"When he got to Year 12 I had to put him with his dad so he could have a stable house and be able to finish his schooling," she said.
"That broke me. It nearly took me.
"That was the last thing I had to live for."
When Ms Harris reached out to support services for help, they told her that her car was a "good enough" roof over her head.
"This roof doesn't have a toilet or a bathroom or a kitchen. Where do I eat? Where do I cook?" Ms Harris said.
The mother recently moved into social housing, but her son, Michael Harris, 24, still cannot find stable housing.
"He's now still struggling to find his own home as well," Ms Harris said.
"It's unfortunate that the life that he was brought up in is what he considers normal."
Speaking at a homelessness rally outside South Australia's Parliament, Ms Harris said not enough was being done to help people in similar situations.
"I don't want anyone else to have to suffer through what I did and [for] that long, it's just not okay," she said.
More than 40 people, including those sleeping rough, gathered to call for a freeze on rental prices and for an expansion of public housing.
Opening up empty homes
According to the state government, there are currently 84,000 vacant properties in South Australia and more than 6,000 people who are homeless.
The state's social services minister, Nat Cook, is asking owners of empty properties to show "empathy'' and make them available for public housing.
"We're appealing to the private market and the good people of South Australia who might want to show some social consciousness and open up their empty homes for someone to live in," Ms Cook said.
"We [the government] are prepared to invest $177.5 million dollars over the next four years, not just to build 400 homes, but to bring 350 state-owned homes that are empty back into circulation."
But Hutt Street Centre chief executive Chris Burns said relying on people's goodwill would not be enough to solve the problem.
"I think we can afford to look at what incentives can we offer people who own a property to allow a homeless person to rent their house," Mr Burns said.
"That could be subsidised rental, that could be tax relief for those that rent the houses … we've got to look at all the options here."
Funding solutions do exist
While the number of available houses remains an issue, a report by Flinders University has found that a new funding program is successfully helping homeless people find long-term accommodation.
Aspire is a social impact model, which invites companies to invest in services like the Hutt Street Centre to extend its intensive support work from 6 months to 3 years for each participant.
The report found that 369 of the 500-odd Aspire participants had secured a tenancy since joining the program and that 93 per cent of those were maintaining their tenancies.
Mr Burns said his workers had been spending more time supporting people to keep a roof over their heads for longer.
"Often people, when they finally move into a house, have forgotten how to look after their budget and how to care for themselves," he said.
"Through the Aspire model now, we will be better resourced to make sure they can keep that home."
