Housing crisis
Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (16:43): Last Friday a young woman came to my office with a suitcase. She had nowhere to sleep. My office called Launch Housing. They called the Salvation Army, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Safe Steps, Red Cross, Brigidine Sisters, Sacred Heart Mission, St Mary’s House of Welcome, Opening Doors and St Kilda crisis accommodation, on top of urgent calls to the housing minister’s office – but no-one could help her. Not one single bed was available. After 5 hours of dead ends my staff and I were trying to work out what to do when we closed our doors, when the Missionaries of Charity offered her a bed for the night. But the reality is that next time – and there will be a next time – we might not find somewhere.
This government’s failure means that MPs’ offices deal with cases like this regularly, but we are not crisis centres. The desperate situation that this woman faces and the difficulty we had finding a bed for just one night are not unique. The number of Victorians without a home increases every day. Homelessness services are at capacity and underfunded. They need more government support, and urgently. But this government can also stop people from reaching that crisis point. No-one should be begging for a bed. The government must step in now and stop this crisis from growing.