Page 1736 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 17 October 1989
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It should be clearly understood that the introduction of this scheme is not intended to provide fully supported accommodation. This is the role of the supported accommodation assistance program, which is the responsibility of my colleague Mr Berry. I am sure that the need to provide more medium- to long-term supported accommodation for young people will be considered in the development of priorities for that program in 1989-90.
There has been a suggestion that we are doing things in the wrong order. I can assure you that the ACT Government, our Government, is planning youth services very carefully. The Burdekin report highlighted the need for a network of services for young people. We recognise that homeless young people need differing amounts of support and assistance, and this is the network we are building.
Both my colleague Mr Berry and I are developing services to meet the needs of the full range of homeless young people. Briefly, I am aware that Mr Berry has recently funded further services designed to provide appropriate support. Just as an example, there are services like the two new medium- to long-term houses run by Southside Youth Accommodation Service and the housing outreach workers at Shortcuts to help young people learn to live successfully when they cannot live at home.
We are working closely with the Canberra community and businesses to assist our homeless young people. In particular, I draw your attention to the radio FM104.7 homeless youth initiative which I helped to get started in the last month. It will provide further supervised housing options. This project is drawing on the support of the radio station, Rotary and the Anglican Church, along with the ACT Council of Social Service and the Youth Accommodation Network to set up two supported houses for young people. These young people will be between 16 and 18, and most will be school students with little or no family support.
The Housing Trust has also made available a large house in Weston Creek which is providing longer-term boarding facilities under the supervision of a live-in housekeeper. Again, in a further initiative, a new house has been made available to CANA in the inner south area. Both these services provide supervision, which is so necessary for some young people. Our homeless youth housing efforts are therefore good and appropriate and are on the right track, not in the wrong order. They will provide the right balance of supported and independent housing.
The opposition has criticised this Government's initiatives based on the experience with Bowman House. Bowman House was closed down as long-term accommodation 18 months ago - before we were the Government, by the way. Part of its failure as housing for under-18s included its location.
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