"I had been stealing off family because they were there to steal from. I was stealing off people I knew, stealing off people I didn't know," Daniel says, as he talks about his childhood.

Physically he had hit rock bottom weeks earlier, but psychologically this was a new low. His face had become covered in scabs from the drugs, he had lost 25 kilograms because he had spent his money on getting high rather than eating. When he was tired and had nowhere to go he would head to the nearest park, drink until he passed out and get up the next day and do it all again. And he had been living that way since he was 13.

"I couch surfed between places, and some of them were really f..ed up places. Sometimes I would sleep in a park, I would get drunk and pass out. I didn't worry too much about where I was, I would just just get really drunk and lie down."

"People see a guy like Daniel and immediately make their judgements," says Josh O'Dwyer, Daniel's case manager at Oasis Youth Services. "What they don't see is the situations that make young people like Daniel homeless in the first place, they don't end up that way by choice."

Daniel is one of the estimated 44,000 young Australians experiencing homelessness, according to the Salvation Army. It is a disproportionately large community of suffering that goes mostly unnoticed by many Australians, particularly in Canberra, where just 6 per cent of those without a stable home end up on the streets. The rest move from home to home, couchsurfing their way through everyone they know until they run out of options. Others end up living in their cars, in friends' garages or worse. According to the ACT government around 40 per cent of homeless Canberrans are under the age of 25, a number some charities say is probably closer to 60 per cent. At the extreme end 16 per cent of homeless Canberrans are children under 12.

As the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul Society and Communities@Work gear up for a month of campaigns to raise awareness of the extent of homelessness in the local community, those on the coalface of the support services say chronic shortages nationally of affordable housing, climbing rates of domestic violence and family breakdown are forcing growing numbers of young people out of stable accommodation.

"Family breakdown is the number one cause of homelessness for young people," says manager of the Salvation Army's ACT youth homelessness programs Carolyn Campbell. "We are only just starting to see how many people there are in the ACT, the data is showing an increase but we don't know if that's just because they are going through a central intake point, so we don't really know the full picture of the problem yet."

Domestic violence is also estimated to account for nearly a third of all homelessness. During the week Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a $100 million package to combat the national epidemic.

The last Australian census showed around 1500-2000 homeless people in Canberra. But Communities@Work chief executive Lynne Harwood said there was a far greater group of Canberrans on the cusp of losing their homes.

"On top of those numbers there are a further 30,000 in the ACT who are receiving food and emergency relief support, which suggests they are at risk of being homeless, and might be only be one or two minor incidents away. These are people who are already choosing between whether to pay their gas bill for winter or whether to put food on the table."

St Vincent de Paul Society of Canberra and Goulburn region president Frank Brassil places much of the blame for the suffering on a national shortage of social and affordable housing coupled with rising real estate prices.

"Commercial rents are now mostly out of reach of those on Centrelink incomes or low incomes in Canberra. In public housing unless you're on a priority list it's well over a year's wait. There is a chronic shortage and there is a responsibility at all levels of government in Australia … it's hard to find a reasonable excuse for why there aren't enough houses for people who need them."

For Daniel it began at the age of 12, living in a dysfunctional family awash with drugs and alcohol. He found himself moving from home to home with his mother and brother, and by 13 he had begun to rebel. His mother was no longer able to cope and threw him out.

"At first it was fun, it was a big adventure. It would alternate between Mum saying, 'come back, get out, come back'. In between I'd couch surf where I could, sometimes but not too often I'd end up sleeping on the street."

That spiral soon led to alcohol, and then on to pot, pills, ice, acid and any other drug he could afford. At an age where he should have been in high school setting himself up for a career, he found himself deep in crime and surrounded by dangerous people.

Fortunately the wild swing with the blade missed his brother, and today the two remain close. But the incident left a mark on Daniel, who made a decision at that point to change his life.

"I don't know how I'm not in jail, but I'm glad I'm not because now I'm in a position to change."

After returning to Canberra after a period on the NSW coast he reached out for help. Slowly with the support of a sponsor he began to detox and rebuild his life.

Now 21, he no longer takes drugs, drinks, cheats or steals from those around him. The holes in his teeth caused by his methamphetamine addiction have been repaired.

On Monday, exactly 320 days after he last did something he wasn't proud of, Daniel began his first serious job.

"It's a contract for nine months, it's just manual work, but if I can get through it it will be the first time I've been able to keep a full-time job."

Having done the hard work to get clean and sober, Josh O'Dwyer believes Daniel is now on track to realise his dreams of becoming a social worker to help others, and one day moving out of the Ainslie refuge he currently calls home.

"He's done all the hard work now, he has dreams of seeing Tokyo one day and I believe he's going to do it."

Daniel hopes that if all goes well, he might be able to afford to move into a share house by the end of the year, but can't think too much yet about finding a home or meeting the high cost of living in Canberra.

"It does my head in if I think about that stuff too much, but I know I don't want that life anymore. I don't want to follow my family's path and end up a crackhead, so for now I'm going to do this for nine months and then hopefully go on to a better-paying job." As soon as he is able to he wants to start paying back those he has wronged, but first he needs to look after himself.

"I don't cheat or steal anymore. Most days I'm honest and if I'm not I'm not being honest with myself. If I can get this right I can build on it. After that there's no limits."

The Salvation Army's couch project is running through September and early October. To make a donation visit thecouchproject.com.au/oasiscanberra.

The Canberra Community Sleepout takes place at the Australian Institute of Sport on October 16. For details visit sleepout.org.au.