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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-11 Daily Xml
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Homelessness Alliances

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding human services.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: Under the new homelessness alliance model, specialist mental health provider Neami has lost its funding that delivers the Street to Home program. Street to Home literally goes out into the Parklands early in the morning to find rough sleepers and offer them support. This will cease on 1 July. My questions to the minister are:

1. After 1 July, who exactly is going out into the Parklands in the middle of winter to find people sleeping in the cold?

2. With the expected closure of 67 crisis beds on 1 July, where exactly are people supposed to sleep, if they engage with the support services?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:21): I thank the honourable member for his question. It is a little bit like groundhog day in responding to these particular matters in terms of the questions that the Labor Party is continuing to choose to ask on these matters in relation to homelessness reforms.

We are unashamedly looking for better services. I could read the entire TACSI report to people to explain to them why this is so important that we reform our services. The Centre for Social Innovation did a report where they interviewed 93 people with lived experience, to inform our reforms going forward, about existing services, which is no reflection on individual services. What I am talking about is the system as a whole is broken and doesn't work for people. Some of the direct quotes, which are from this report, include someone who says:

I’ve got one worker for housing, one for health, one for my kids. There’s no one to join the dots.

Another one says:

I am tired of being a reference number or a box. The system makes people feel like they are worthless and something is wrong with them.

Someone else says:

It is like the secret service. Trying to get information or support is a nightmare. We are left wondering what the criteria is and who makes the decisions.

That is some of the direct feedback we had from people with lived experience—who have experienced homelessness—about the services they were receiving in South Australia, which again I say is no reflection on individual services but a reflection on the system.

We are increasing funding for homelessness. The crisis bed numbers will remain the same. We have a specific mental health service, which is part of the southern and Adelaide bid—Sonder Care, which will provide a peer support outreach service to regularly engage with people in the inner city. The mobile support team can offer mental health services, meaning the client doesn't have to wait to receive an appointment at a later date.

The successful tender alliance is continuing to work with the existing providers to ensure that people will get services through the transition process, which we understand takes some work for that to occur. The number of crisis beds in the system has remained the same.

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