Image: Hotspots for people sleeping rough around the city is increasing. Image: City of Sydney.
The Minns Labor Government has announced their new 10-year strategy for combatting homelessness in Sydney after a 67 per cent increase in the past five years.
Working alongside homelessness and housing services, the new strategy focuses on early intervention and long-term housing outcomes that commit to ending homelessness from 2025 to 2035.
The Minister for Housing and Homelessness Rose Jackson said, “We are formalising and embedding the Housing First approach as the official government policy to end homelessness in NSW. This approach ensures that people have stable housing first, backed by the support they need to rebuild their lives.”
The new approach aims to reform government interventions and the support that people experiencing homelessness can receive from organisations. The initial stages of intervention are being introduced and promise change in immediate crisis.
The new interventions include the establishment of a NSW street sleeping registry to improve service ordination, a new system wide housing first approach for NSW which allows for fast response, a targeted response for young people and Aboriginal people who endure challenges within the system, and collaboration networks which allow for individuals to have access to a range of resources and necessities.
These reforms will be developed and introduced by the NSW Government as the initial stages, assisting in the immediate recovery of the homelessness crisis in NSW.
CEO OF Homelessness Dom Rowe says, “This Homelessness Strategy answers that call and sets a path to a better future for people at risk of homelessness and the services that support them.”
Investing in social housing to tackle homelessness rates
The NSW housing system has seen rapid change through a record $6.6 billion investment into social housing and homelessness through the Building Homes for NSW program.
Providing over 1,700 homes in the recent year and upgrading over 6,000 social homes, the program has successfully made the largest increase in public, community, and affordable homes in over a decade.
Additionally, the housing waitlist has been reduced by 8 months, with modular housing reforming as a mass public housing system. With the government currently producing over 90 modular public homes to be delivered in NSW over the next year.
“Our sector has been calling for a whole of government response to this crisis, that acknowledges a need to respond now but also sets a reform agenda for the future,” says Rowe.
Why now?
The new strategy is a result of a collapsed agreement made by the NSW Government to end street sleeping in February 2019.
The agreement made with the Institute of Global Homelessness and City of Sydney included a commitment to reduce rough sleepers by 50 per cent by the end of 2025.
Since 2019, limited change has been made to end the crisis, as the state government says that an increase in rough sleepers has been the only result.
“The previous government’s promise to cut homelessness in half by 2025 simply hasn’t been delivered,” says Jackson.
As major sector changes are being introduced, people experiencing homelessness across Sydney and NSW will have quicker access to the services they need and have support from the government in improving social stability.
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