A $1.3 million project in Dubbo will try to settle single men with a history of drug, alcohol and mental health problems into long-term homes.
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It is one of 20 new services for homeless people in NSW announced this week by federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek and her NSW counterpart Frank Terenzini.
Ms Plibersek said “homelessness can happen to anyone” and the new services would make a “practical difference to people’s lives”.
Housing NSW yesterday confirmed there were 1400 homeless people “concentrated in Dubbo, Broken Hill, Walgett and Bathurst”.
They included “6 per cent of NSW’s Indigenous homeless population”.
Housing NSW reported that the region had a “greater proportion of rough sleepers than NSW” with more than a quarter of the homeless in the western region in the category.
“Rough sleepers are people without conventional accommodation, particularly people who sleep in the open, squatters, those living in improvised dwellings, such as sheds, garages and cabins, and those using cars or railway carriages for temporary shelter,” a spokesperson said.
Housing NSW also reported of a “greater proportion of Indigenous people in SAAP accommodation than NSW”.
SAAP stands for the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program, a joint state and federal initiative.
Almost half of SAAP clients in the western region were Indigenous, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Community Services will be the “lead agency” for the Dubbo project that will be put out to tender.
“This project will provide integrated and intensive case management support for single men with mental health and/or drug and alcohol issues to exit SAAP into long-term accommodation with sustained support, with a focus on Aboriginal men,” the spokesperson said.
NSW Housing has confirmed two other projects for Dubbo, one supporting young Aboriginal parents including those under the age of 18. It aims to provide long-term accommodation and support for young parents to “maintain existing tenancies”.
The Early Intervention in Sustaining Tenancies project aims to help “sustain tenancies” to prevent homelessness and reduce the “significant number of people, particularly Aboriginal people, accessing SAAP services and being evicted from long-term, accommodation” in western NSW.
