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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-23 Daily Xml
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Homelessness

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding homelessness.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS: An email to the Adelaide Zero steering group on Tuesday this week said:

The July housing placement rate was lower than normal. This was due to a number of factors including Toward Home Alliance services requiring time to engage with clients to understand their individual housing needs after being transferred from outgoing providers.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Will the minister now admit that the transition period between the old and new homeless system was inadequate and has left vulnerable people at risk?

2. Why weren't clients transferred before or, at a minimum, immediately after the new system started?

3. What is the total staffing establishment for the Toward Home Alliance, and how many positions remain unfilled nearly three months after the new system started?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:01): I thank the honourable member for her question. I hardly think that a single email is some form of evidence that an entire system was not done appropriately. We went through an extensive process. If I take the chamber back to the decision to move towards an alliance model, it was something where the sector came to us and said that this is a model that they believed would work. I think we did a round of consultations with the sector, talking through what an alliance model would look like, what the implications would be for them.

Then we went through an extensive tender process. One alliance model in that process was unsuccessful. There were four particular alliances which were uncontested, so those service providers remained, with the exception of one in the Riverland that decided not to participate. Then we had an implementation plan.

At no point in any of the discussions have I ever hidden the fact that there would be some need for transition in terms of this being a new model and therefore that there may be some things that need to be adjusted through that process. The South Australian housing alliance has been the organisation which throughout the role of AZP in terms of allocations has provided the largest number of properties to that particular program and continues to be so, so is very supportive of that allocations process.

In addition, we have new properties which are coming online, particularly the site at Holbrooks, which has the wraparound services, which is very important for the more complex clients, who are the ones who are most difficult to place and who are the ones who are most likely to experience a failure of the placement. If they are placed into a particular property and they don't have those wraparound services, they may get themselves into trouble and then fall out of that tenancy.

So we want to make sure that people are supported through this process as deeply as possible. With the southern and Adelaide alliance we have a mental health provider, Sonder, which is the first time we have had an organisation like that within this space. We know that mental health is a significant contributor to homelessness, particularly repeat homelessness, so I have every confidence going forward that the alliance model is the right one, and I commend the service providers for their commitment to this important cause.

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