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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-28 Daily Xml
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HOMELESS2HOME

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:16): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Social Housing a question about the Housing SA Homeless to Home strategy.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Reported last week in InDaily, the Migrant Women's Support Service, a state-funded agency looking after migrant victims of domestic violence, stated that women and children are being housed in motels in a flawed new strategy that is supposed to find homes quicker for migrants. In late 2010, a new Housing SA strategy, the Homeless to Home strategy, was implemented and, as a result, migrant women are finding themselves adrift in a confusing manner with welfare services since this change.

It has been reported that many of these migrant women from Adelaide finish up being offered accommodation in regional South Australia. The InDaily report stated that Homeless to Home was intended to streamline the delivery of support services to people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. However, the strategy added layers of confusion and distress to the clients and workers of the Migrant Women's Support Service agency, and it has also reduced its budget for frontline services by almost 20 per cent. My questions are:

1. Does the minister believe the Homeless to Home strategy is providing adequate support services to people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds?

2. How will the minister address the problems faced by migrant victims of domestic violence who are located in regional areas of South Australia with no guarantee that these women will be able to maintain contact with cultural domestic violence workers with whom they have already established a rapport?

3. When will the minister review the government's housing strategy and its budget to look at providing more appropriate services for these disadvantaged women, and how does he intend to get these women back on their feet and into a home?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:18): I would like to thank the honourable member for her most important question. In 2010, Housing SA reformed the homelessness and domestic violence sector to ensure that people could access services in every region across the state. The reform included changes and investment in the domestic and Aboriginal family violence service sector in line with the new legislative and policy directions of state and commonwealth governments.

Overall funding to domestic and Aboriginal family violence services post reform has increased by 28 per cent. One of the major changes in the reform was to ensure statewide access to all regional domestic violence services for cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) women and their children experiencing domestic violence. Following the reforms, all regional domestic violence services have a target to work with 8 per cent of CALD clients.

In addition, a new statewide CALD domestic violence service was intended to provide both service delivery to CALD women and their children in partnership with regional domestic violence services as well as sector support and training to increase the capacity of all services to respond to this target group.

The Migrant Women's Support and Accommodation Service operates the statewide CALD domestic violence service. Prior to the implementation of the homelessness reforms, the Migrant Women's Support and Accommodation Service provided the only response to CALD women and their children experiencing domestic violence in South Australia.

Through creating working partnerships between regional domestic violence services and the statewide CALD domestic violence service, the new service system now provides accommodation and support to CALD women and their children via a network of domestic violence services across South Australia, as well as the provision of specialist knowledge and support from the CALD-specific service.

I am advised that there are 13 regional domestic and family violence services across South Australia, as well as three Aboriginal-specific services and four statewide domestic violence responses, including a central gateway service and a specific response for women and children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. Our new 8 per cent CALD target was included in every regional domestic violence service contract.

The question asked by the member was: are we satisfied with this response? Of course, we can always do better, and it is the desire of this government to improve on the service delivery we provide right now. I advise further that domestic violence intervention orders help to keep victims in their homes, where they can be supported by their families and friends. Intervention orders help to remove the perpetrator from the home quickly while securing and protecting victims, and securing and protecting victims will always be the priority of this government.

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