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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-06-10 Daily Xml
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Homelessness

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Human Services about homelessness. Can the minister please provide an update to the council on the support the Marshall Liberal government is providing in recently announced homelessness sector reforms?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for her question. Indeed, the Homelessness Alliances tender has been completed, which we believe is an Australia-first approach, focusing on early intervention to assist in preventing people from falling into homelessness, with wraparound and extended supports to prevent people from cycling in and out of homelessness, which is what our experience has been in more recent years.

The alliance model combines collective resources and experiences of providers and, through outcomes focused contracts, makes it easier for services to adjust their model to close service gaps and, over time, invest more funding into services that are working well.

What we do know with the existing contracts, which have been rolled over for the better part of a decade, is that that has not enabled services to respond to changes in demand. They have been required to keep providing the existing services to particular cohorts and service outputs rather than being able to be flexible as circumstances have changed. In addition, because it was an annual program, we are now moving to two-year contracts, which provides them with more certainty.

We do know that people with lived experience have told us that the system wasn't working for them and that too many of the services were short term and fragmented. So we are looking forward to the new arrangements coming in place from 1 July.

I might blush as I read this out, but I did actually receive an email from the global guru of homelessness, Dame Louise Casey, Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBE CB, who recently emailed Ian Cox, who is the leader of Homelessness Sector Integration within the Housing Authority, and myself to provide us the following, which I would like to quote from. She sent us an email on 21 May to say:

I do hope this finds you and all your teams well. It looks like you continue to deal with fire, plague and more but are dealing with it well! I've heard about some of the action you've taken during COVID and am taken yet again with the clarity of purpose you have.

Since our meeting in Glasgow in 2019, I have been following the great progress you have made and the evolution of your strategy in South Australia.

So just wanted to say congratulations on the announcement of the SA Homelessness Alliances. I was pleased to see your leadership on both prevention (turning off the taps, I'd say!) and long-term housing, with support for people with complex needs.

I know that determining outcomes and managing Alliances can be quite tricky, so wanted to be sure that you knew that the whole IGH team—

that's the Institute of Global Homelessness team—

is at the ready to help assist you and your team in the coming months with the transition to newly selected service providers.

We see Adelaide and South Australia as important voices in the global movement to end rough sleeping and we're proud to have you as part of the Vanguard Cities program.

It has indeed been very reassuring to receive that support, in terms of the direction we are taking. We have acknowledged that we knew that change wasn't going to be an easy process. I may have outlined here previously that the transition to home alliance have been advertising positions on their website for anybody who is currently employed in the sector who may be looking to continue their role. We certainly value all the experience of people who have worked in this space for some time and wish to retain their expertise going forward.

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