"It's cold, it's wet on bad days," he says. However, it's a bed and shelter. "A place to hide out from the rest of the world."

On any given night, 105,000 Australians are without a home. Sleeping rough, Jaike is at the extreme end of an unpleasant, ever-changing spectrum; a world of emergency refuges, overcrowded lodges, friends' couches. It is also a world of the young and naive, as 40 per cent of the country's homeless are under 25.

On Youth Homelessness Matters Day, Wednesday, April 15, Advocacy group Yfoundations will launch a paper calling on the government to prioritise adolescent health care as a key tool in preventing homelessness and other forms of disenfranchisement. While family and relationship breakdown is the most common trigger for homelessness, mental health issues can be both a cause and a consequence. In a study of homeless 13 to 25-year-olds by the Centre for Social Impact, 53 per cent reported at least one diagnosed mental health condition.

"There are all sorts of ways in which health links to homelessness quite strongly," says Yfoundations senior policy officer Chris Stone. Young people who are physically unwell or disabled have lower earning potential, while someone with schizophrenia may be prone to outbursts which lead to their eviction.

Jaike had risk factors in spades. He says he is the child of a rape. His mother divorced his step-father and moved, he lost his friends, and life at home became toxic. They would fight over the length of his showers or use of the dryer. Eventually he moved into a refuge. "I honestly don't know what her problem is," Jaike says. "But she just can't accept the fact she has a kid."

He rattles off his unmedicated disorders: Asperger's, ADHD, ODD, learning difficulties, anxiety and depression. He hastens to add, with a hint of pride, that Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had Asperger's - "the smartest mathematicians, the inventors that created the stuff that we live on to this day". Both are believed to have shown signs of the syndrome.

Organisations in the homelessness sector have broadly welcomed the Coalition's election promises on housing affordability, and in particular, Premier Mike Baird's personal determination to address the issue. In an emotional speech before an Australian Christian Lobby forum in March, Baird said he had witnessed the value of youth services up close. "I've seen kids who have ... you know, life would say to them ... you're worth nothing," he told his audience. "As we know, every single person matters. Every single person."

However, not everybody is singing the government's praises. When former minister Pru Goward put specialist homelessness services out to tender, many smaller operators were squeezed out and the personal connections between provider and client were severed. Most people in the sector say it is too early to assess the impact of this move. Goward's successor, Gabrielle Upton, later signed an agreement with the Commonwealth that boosted funding for homelessness services by 10 per cent.

Advocacy groups say one of the lingering problems created by the reforms is a funding shortfall for 24/7 accommodation and care services for young people. Katherine McKernan, chief executive of Homelessness NSW, says there are gaps in services for 18 to 24-year-olds in places such as Goulburn and Queanbeyan, while "there's no accommodation at all in Cooma and Bega for people who are under 18".

According to Stone, the government miscalculated. "It's hard to understand how they came up with the figures that they did," he says.

Wading into this challenge is Brad Hazzard, whose post-election portfolio includes Families and Community Services, and Social Housing. He concedes mistakes may have been made in the way money was allocated under the Going Home, Staying Home reforms, and says he would be prepared to reconsider the funding model. However, the principles behind GHSH - early intervention and connected services - are sound, he says.

"When they walk through a door, [people] should be a person, first and foremost - with all of the baggage that they have being addressed by the first agency that they see," Hazzard tells the Herald.

He says GHSH is working well in some areas, such as Wagga Wagga, which he visited as part of an ongoing listening tour to see how the reforms are playing out on the ground. If there are problems, he'll make changes, he says.

"I'm moving around the state to form my own opinions on those issues. If there have been some gaps left, then I will certainly be trying to ensure the Baird government fills those gaps," he says. "One would expect in a state as big as NSW we may not have got it absolutely perfect."

Hazzard is confident the tender process yielded "more positives than negatives", but is "disappointed" for some of the smaller organisations that missed out on funding. "Within their narrow perspective, they were doing a first-class job. But in some cases, perhaps they didn't quite have the connectedness that's needed," he says. He will not rule out a new tendering process but says it is unlikely.

Jaike has had contact with countless charities and refuges. He says his last housing application was rejected but does not know why. One of the biggest barriers to finding a home is trust, he says. "I have a short list of people that I'd die for," he says - street friends he hopes to look after when he's rich and famous. But for the most part, the streets are awash with rumours, lies and empty promises, he says.

"It's a big mentality game. You have to know how to spin words and how to read people's emotions and body language," he says. "You don't say what you don't want heard."

He hasn't had much luck with employers, either. He knows they look upon his skinny frame and tattoos and assume he's a junkie. Jaike says he has never touched ice or heroin, just a little pot and booze.

He dreams of resurrecting his stage name, Kurupt Emcee, for a rap career which will deliver fame and riches. He has videos on YouTube and has even recorded in the studio, but the tracks, like so many of his other possessions, have been lost to the streets. He has just found a ukulele and wants to learn how to play it.

"I hope sooner or later, one day, I get a job, a house, a wife and kids," Jaike says. "In the meantime I'm just trying to cross over, get out of this f---ed up shit."