No room in the inn

Despite Senator Patterson’s admission that “the Government has historically provided the majority of SAAP funding”, the Howard Government responded to the report by reducing base funding so it could put more money into “innovation”.

I have no problem with the idea we need to be innovative and develop models of service that better meet the diverse needs of homeless Australians and those at risk of homelessness - a focus on prevention and early intervention is necessary. However, the SAAP evaluation also found that at least an additional 35 to 40 per cent of funding would be required to enable news ways of working within SAAP.

In this context, the Howard Government’s series of under-funded, small scale and ad hoc homelessness programs is clearly inadequate.

For example, the HOME Advice Program, with funds of $2.6 million, helps about 400 families in 8 discrete locations each year. The program is invaluable for those families lucky enough to access support, but it is hardly a display of national action to prevent homelessness.

Reconnect is a larger program aimed at young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and costs $20 million a year. But its 96 locations come nowhere near the “national coverage” recommended by the Government’s own Youth Homelessness Taskforce in 1998. And its target age group of 12 to 18-year-olds leaves young people who are over 18-years high and dry.

Meanwhile, the so-called National Homelessness Strategy has been little more than a series of short-lived “demonstration projects”, with no apparent consideration of how to maintain (let alone expand) successful programs and virtually no effort made to disseminate the lessons learned.

Clearly, the Howard Government must do better. They could start by taking on board Senator Vanstone’s further statement in 2001 that “we need to exhaust every avenue to try and prevent homelessness”.

There is no shortage of evidence on what needs to be done and no shortage of community support - it is simply a question of will. Will you or won’t you?