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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-11-10 Daily Xml
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Homelessness Services

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:31): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding homelessness.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: On 26 October, 10 major homelessness providers sent a six-page letter to the South Australian Housing Authority's Head of Homelessness Sector Integration that raised 'concerns about how the reform process has been undertaken'. The head of homelessness was recruited to manage the homelessness sector reform but effectively has no budget, almost no staff and doesn't sit on the authority's executive. The letter raises dozens of issues across five topic areas, including:

inadequate time for the reform process;

current datasets not being suitable for the proposed model;

lack of clarity about subcontracting;

lack of clarity about different roles, resources and governance in the new system;

inadequate provisions for risk and reward;

concerns about where the CBD sits in the alliance structure and a need for separate discussions and negotiations about the CBD;

concerns that the new model will reduce resources for service delivery;

concerns about collusion;

contradictory messaging about continuity and change;

lack of authentic cooperation with Aboriginal controlled community organisations; and finally

silence from the government on addressing the need for an increased supply of accessible housing.

My questions are: has the minister read the letter from 10 major homelessness service providers in South Australia, including some from the minister's hand-picked sector reference group? How is the homelessness model adopted by Glasgow, a small city in Scotland, in any way relevant to remote and regional South Australia, including people from remote Aboriginal communities?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:33): I thank the honourable member for her question. I certainly am aware of the letter, which I understand will be receiving a formal response from the authority—

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: Have you read it?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I have read the letter. Of course I have read the letter. In addition, I would say that the contents that have been raised in the letter have been addressed quite extensively through a FAQ section that is publicly available on the SA Housing Authority website.

If I can just take it all back a few steps and talk about why we are doing what we are doing with the homelessness sector: it is a services sector that receives some $70 million per annum and has approximately 20,000 clients a year, which equates to roughly $3,000 per annum per client. What we have chosen to do through the homeless reform is not to adopt an NDIS model, where the client effectively has control of that funding and determines how it is expended.

I am sure that there might be some clients who might benefit from utilising that quantum of money and obtaining a property in the private rental market. We have chosen to follow the lead of what the sector asked us to do in this space, which is to adopt this particular reform, which is about governance and how non-government organisations arrange their homelessness services themselves, with the support of the Housing Authority as part of that governance structure.

This is something about which the homelessness sector has come to us and said, 'We think this is a model that is working effectively.' It is something that has been articulated through the Institute of Global Homelessness, in particular Dame Louise Casey. We know it is a challenging time, because funding reform is always difficult, and I will be the first to acknowledge that. But continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome is the definition of madness, as they say.

Rather than do what the commonwealth might also have chosen to do in similar circumstances, where the government dictates to the sector how these reforms will go going forward, we have adopted this proposal from elements of and from leadership from within the homelessness services sector. We have been to Glasgow and been at the conference of the Institute of Global Homelessness, examined it in detail and taken a considerable amount of time to reach this point.

As the member pointed out, we had a reference group, which has been very supportive of this particular reform, and we are now getting to the pointy end. So I do not think it is surprising that there is some nervousness about it going forward. But as anyone who looks at the publicly available information on the Housing Authority website can see, it is not about a reduction in funding. It is a particular governance model. It is probably quite novel for South Australia, but we believe it will lead to better outcomes for people who are experiencing homelessness.

I have spoken previously in this place about the people with lived experience who have spoken to me about their experience. One who comes to mind quite readily went to a particular service outlet and was turned away because he did not fit that cohort. This particular individual does not have ID, does not have a mobile phone, does not have cash, apart from what he asks people for in the street, and he was turned away. Part of the reason I think is because the services have tended to work in silos. During COVID we have seen an improvement in that, but we need to have the 'no wrong door' approach, where services are able to assist people when they come to them at their point in time.

We also need to ensure that we are genuinely working on early intervention and prevention of homelessness, which is why we are focusing on that as part of this homeless reform. I have every confidence that the sector is able to do this. I understand their nervousness, but I have every confidence in their ability to deliver this for those people with lived experience for much better outcomes into the future.

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