Page 638 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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strategy. Breaking the cycle is an ambitious strategy, but to engender real social change and to improve the lives of people experiencing, at risk of, or transitioning from, homelessness, we have to be ambitious. I am proud of the achievements of our community in implementing the strategy to date. There are many players involved and each has been influential in improving the ACT’s response to homelessness.
The homelessness strategy provides the framework for achieving a coordinated community response to homelessness. This second annual progress report provides an overview of the range of activities associated with the implementation from June 2005 to July 2006. The strategy is one of the ACT’s key strategies for social change and it sits under the policy framework of the Canberra plan and the social plan. The social plan provides a long-term target of reducing primary homelessness in the ACT to as close to zero as possible by 2013.
The homelessness strategy provides the blueprint through which the community will work together to reduce the level of homelessness, as well as its causes and effects. My job is to work with the community to substantially improve the lives of its most disadvantaged and socially excluded members. We do this through direct service delivery, such as through our disability, care and protection and therapy services and through the development of informed and consultative policy.
In developing and implementing the homelessness strategy, we have set out a program of social change. We have moved from the situation a few years ago prior to the strategy where what we had was a number of stand-alone services for homeless people, such as refuges, and mainstream services such as health services and housing, most of which homeless people found it difficult to access.
Today we have a situation where we are building an integrated service system which works to provide seamless services for homeless people and those at risk of becoming homeless. For example, we have protocols between mental health and the supported accommodation assistance program—SAAP—services to ensure that homeless people get access to mental health services.
We have made significant changes to the public housing rental assistance program to ensure that Housing ACT has the flexibility to more appropriately respond to the needs of applicants with high and complex needs. The changes position Housing ACT as the post-crisis housing provider and as part of the service continuum where SAAP provides the crisis response.
We have reformed Housing ACT gateway services so that housing applicants are now linked to the support they need from the time of application for housing assistance through to the time they are allocated a home. We have client support coordinators working inside public housing to support tenants and provide assistance to sustain the tenancies of people who are at risk of eviction. We have two sustaining tenancy programs to work with public and community housing tenants who are at risk of being evicted.
We have commissioned research into the needs of children who are experiencing homelessness, which will also deliver a resource for those who work with children. We are prioritising emergency accommodation for women and children forced to
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