HOMELESSNESS —
GERALDTON
913. Mr I.C. BLAYNEY to the Minister for Community Services:
I refer to a young homeless family
who visited my office this week, who have been unable to secure emergency accommodation in Geraldton despite my office's
best efforts and the help of the minister's office. Has the government
commenced identification of a site and/or planning for urgently needed crisis
accommodation in Geraldton; and, if not, why not?
Ms S.F. McGURK
replied:
I thank the member for the question.
We are doing a number of things around addressing homelessness. It is not a new
problem for Western Australia. One would think, listening to the questions from
the other side of the house to the government, that this is a new issue that we
face, but of course it is an issue that dogs many communities across Australia and the world. In any case, I understand
that there are vulnerable people throughout the state. When we launched
the ''All Paths Lead to a Home'' strategy last year, it was
underpinned by some research done in Western
Australia by the University of WA to understand exactly what is happening with
homelessness around the state and not just with those who are street
present and sometimes front of mind. It is important that we understand the
cohort that we are dealing with.
People would know that our overall
strategy is based around a Housing First approach, and that is to have outreach
workers develop a relationship with people who are homeless. Our priority is to
identify permanent housing for people who are sleeping rough. We need to
understand their housing requirements, source housing for them and give them
proper supports so that they can stay in the housing. All the research shows
that that works incredibly well. Not a week goes by that I do not see more
evidence in Western Australia that this is the correct approach or it is drawn
to my attention in other jurisdictions. We announced a $72 million homelessness
package. Half of that money will go to the Housing First approach, and that
will include an allocation for Geraldton. Some of those outreach workers will
be based in Geraldton and will start to work with people who are experiencing
homelessness, based on a Housing First approach. In fact, I was in Geraldton
just last week and it has already had its connections day, which is when
community sector organisations go out and start to work with people so that we
can have good data and understand the cohort that we are working with. We have
already appointed Ruah Community Services to be the backbone organisation for
our Housing First approach. Over the coming months, Ruah will start to engage with
local providers who will then do the outreach work. This is in addition to over
$90 million that the state and federal governments already spend in Western Australia
to tackle homelessness. Good work is already being done and I know that those services are also operating in Geraldton. I am
confident that this is the correct approach. Where we can, we continue
to provide emergency accommodation. There is always more to be done in this
space, whether it is in the metro area, regional centres or rural and remote
areas, but I am confident that what we are doing with Housing First will
provide solid outcomes for people in the long term.