[Suzanne rose]

Father Chris Riley​

Father Chris Riley has died at the age of 70 after a battle with illness.

Born in Victoria, Father Riley relocated to Sydney and became well known for founding the not-for-profit organisation Youth Off The Streets in 1991.

Youth Off The Streets supports young people experiencing homelessness and other harships, and expanded from a small operation in Sydney's King's Cross to a much larger program Australia-wide.

He helped my daughter inlaw and her sister from the age of 12 when they became homeless due to their drug addicted mother.

I know she will definitely attend his funeral

 

[Penny4]

Very sad news. He will be missed by many people in Sydney.

 

[Suzanne rose]

This is from The Sydney Morning Herald and Sonya is my now daughter inlaw

Once adrift, Sonya is back in touch​

September 13, 2004

Sonya Botterill knows the feeling of being cut adrift. The 20-year-old spent most of her childhood shuffling between foster homes and women's refuges. At the age of 13, a transient lifestyle was the only one she had known.
Today, Ms Botterill has her own rental accommodation and a job in a horticultural centre and has just finished a floristry course, largely thanks to the help she received from Father Chris Riley's Youth Off the Streets organisation.
But meeting the challenges of youth homelessness is becoming an increasingly technology-driven field.

While most Australians take for granted the way mobile phones and the internet have become central to communication, there are an estimated 45,000 homeless people under the age of 25 for whom such technology remains beyond their grasp.

Now some of Sydney's most needy teenagers are receiving what most high school students believe they cannot live without.

Youth Off the Streets, Mission Australia and Barnardos Australia have become partners in a pilot program designed to equip young people in crisis with mobile phones.

Since July, the Vodafone Australia Foundation has provided more than 150 pre-paid mobiles to homeless children aged between 13 and 18, enabling them to keep in touch with their case workers, potential employers, Centrelink and, if they chose, their families.

Lareena Brown, corporate partnerships manager at Youth off the Streets, says the program has the potential to break the vicious cycle many teenagers without stable accommodation find themselves trapped in.

For Ms Botterill, applying for a job meant you had to leave the phone number of a refuge - a factor hardly likely to endear you to a prospective employer.

"I'd see other kids - normal kids - and they had phones their parents had bought them. But I thought, if I got a phone, I'd sell it the next day. Or I'd lose it, because I was moving all the time."

RIP Father Riley