Page 4390 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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(ii) financial and other benefits of providing immediate or timely access to social housing or support into the private rental market; and
(iii) assess the cost benefits of housing first models, including Common Ground ACT; and
(b) provide the report on this work to the Assembly by the first sitting day in August 2020.
This motion calls for the ACT government to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of tackling homelessness because I believe this work can highlight the benefits of providing safe accommodation to all people requiring a roof over their heads, as a starting point, before providing supports to assist people who are homeless to get their lives back on track. The benefits to individuals and to the community will be obvious, but this analysis should also highlight the economic savings that are generated through such an approach: not just better social outcomes and better quality of life issues but the potential for economic savings for the government and the community as a whole.
To be clear, I am not saying the ACT government has done nothing in regard to homelessness. In fact, there are a number of items in the parliamentary agreement that have been achieved during this term of the Assembly, such as the development of the housing strategy, the creation of an innovation fund to support new approaches to affordable housing such as the HomeGround real estate model and strengthening the specialist homelessness and housing support services for vulnerable groups. Those are just a few examples of the extensive effort made by ACT government, both through the direct service provision and the funding of community partners, to tackle the very concerning and, I think for many people in the community, distressing issue of homelessness.
But I remain concerned that there is still a need to increase the number of crisis and supported accommodation beds available to people experiencing homelessness. Early intervention and prevention is important and it is great that we have a single point of entry for these services, OneLink, and organisations such as Woden Community Service and Northside Community Service funded to provide advice and assistance to respond when somebody is in housing crisis or to help avoid one. We need to continue to ensure that there is a continuum of service responses, including secure and appropriate housing.
In my role as justice and corrections minister I have spent time and effort promoting a justice reinvestment approach because the evidence tells us that this is the way to reduce engagement with the criminal justice system and this is the way to reduce spending. It is also a way to achieve better outcomes for people. Put simply, a justice reinvestment approach redirects funding from the crisis responses—adult prison and youth detention—to preventative, diversionary and community development initiatives that address the underlying causes of crime.
This motion is somewhat informed by the concept of justice reinvestment insofar as examining what savings and benefits can be found if we invest in the front end by providing a roof over someone’s head before they have to increase their reliance on
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