Thursday, 4 August 2022

Homelessness

Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:53): This week is national Homelessness Week. This is a time to raise awareness of the impact of homelessness in Australia. Everybody has seen the news. Everybody is aware that we are in the midst of a housing crisis. The theme this year is ‘To end homelessness we need a plan’, and in fact we need a long-term plan. We could not agree more. The stats are damning. In Australia there are 116 000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night. In 2021, 114 000 people seeking homelessness services had to be turned away because of the lack of resources. So what can we do this week to advocate for change? Everybody’s Home will be launching a petition this week to call for additional investment in social housing. You can head to their website to sign and share. There are Homelessness Week events, and you can get involved by sharing the campaigns. Government responses to homelessness have typically been short-sighted. Of course there is a focus from budget to budget but no long-term planning. The Big Housing Build is great, but once these homes are completed we still will not have the national average of social housing dwellings, which is 4.5 per cent. Everyone working in this space is overwhelmed. We need a plan to end homelessness, and not just this week. We think everyone should get behind all these homelessness organisations.