National Homeless Persons’ Week

Today I helped Anglicare launch National Homeless Persons’ Week in Tasmania.

The Liberal Government is committed to tackling homelessness and increasing affordable housing. In the upcoming state budget we will deliver our promises, fix the budget mess, and lay the foundations for the future.

Already we have:

• Overhauled the HomeShare scheme to make it easier for low to middle income earners to buy their own home.
• Started work on a State Affordable Housing Strategy which will provide a clear framework for the next decade around home ownership, affordable rental, public and community housing, and crisis accommodation.
• Announced funding for a new program to provide a tenancy guarantee over and above the standard bond to private landlords willing to lease dwellings to households who would otherwise have difficulty accessing the private rental market. This program will specifically target families where homelessness is placing children at risk of being removed from their parents and placed into child protection.

Increasing the availability of affordable housing for people on low to middle incomes is recognised as one of the best ways to tackle homelessness.

The Government provides funding of over $21 million per year to 18 organisations for Specialist Homelessness Services.

In addition, construction is underway on the $14m Trinity Hill Accommodation and Training Centre which will create 46 independent and supported living units for young people who would otherwise be homeless.

Today Anglicare also released their Reducing Youth Homelessness Report, which is based on the insights and ideas of 22 young people in 2012 with experience of homelessness.

The Government welcomes the report, which highlights the shared responsibility of the whole community, with the support of many government agencies, to provide safe and secure housing options for Tasmania’s young people.

Many of the recommendations in the report echo the Government’s strategies in these areas and other initiatives developed since the research was undertaken.

Housing Connect, which began last year, now provides a one-stop shop for all housing and support needs. The report will also help in the development of our State Affordable Housing Strategy as well as our new approach of joined-up and streamlined human services support systems for vulnerable and disadvantaged Tasmanians.

In the current human services support system it is not uncommon for a family to have 10 different case workers across government and the community sector.

Our new approach will deliver a shared entry point and assessment for services; a lead worker for complex cases; and a system with an outcomes based focus.

Anglicare’s report is yet another indictment on the failures of the previous Labor-Green government in tackling homelessness and supporting vulnerable families and children.

Homelessness in Tasmania increased by 37% in just 5 years under Labor Governments. Their approach to tackling homelessness comprehensively failed.

In particular, for families engaged with child protection or youth justice services, recent reports on the child protection system under the former Labor-Green Government confirm the need for a major cultural shift in child protection.

This is why we took to the election a commitment to a major cultural shift in child protection that is largely focused on engaging with families earlier, thereby providing every chance for families to stay together and to keep their children safely at home.

This includes short-term preventative respite care, to enable intensive support to be provided to parents, while avoiding children being taken unnecessarily into the child protection system. The Liberal government will also invest $5.3 million over three years into a statewide network of youth justice programs, including Save the Children’s Supporting Young People on Bail program, and Post-Detention Transition Program – which have shown outstanding results in helping young people who have offended to re-engage with education and positive influences and prevent re-offending.
Jacquie Petrusma, Minister for Human Services