Homeless numbers soar

THERE are more homeless people in Geelong than ever before amid increasing funding cuts to frontline services, warns Corio MP Richard Marles.

With this week marking Homelessness Week, Mr Marles called on the Government to demonstrate more leadership to take real action on combating this issue.

“Homelessness is often an unexpected difficulty caused by a multitude of reasons, and it often affects those who never thought it could happen to them,” Mr Marles said.

“While there are common misconceptions about homelessness, the government’s own data demonstrates that rough sleepers represent only 7 per cent of people experiencing homelessness.

“The data fails to account for the majority of those who are hidden away from the public eye, taking refuge on friends’ couches, or in a shelter, or in a car, or living in a crowded dwelling.

“On the night of the 2016 census, more than 116,000 people were counted as being homeless in Australia, up 14 per cent from the previous census in 2011, and this growing trend is cause for concern.”

Mr Marles recently met Rebecca Callahan, a co-ordinator at Barwon South West Homelessness Network, which provides support and accommodation to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in our region.

“They do important work by helping to ensure that the most vulnerable in our community have the dignity of a safe place to sleep at night because, unfortunately, Geelong is not immune to the horrors of the homelessness epidemic,” Mr Marles said.

“I’m alarmed but not surprised that, in the City of Greater Geelong, the number of people experiencing homelessness grew from 630 to 750 between 2011 and 2016 — an increase of 120 people.

“The causes are complex; there’s no single trigger.

“But we know that family and domestic violence and housing instability are the most common reasons that people sought homelessness assistance in 2015-16.”

Mr Marles said that despite the work of organisations such as the Barwon South West Homelessness Network, the government needed to do more.

He said local support service Diversitat was facing cuts this December to its emergency support services.

“Diversitat is doing critical work to reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness and helping those at risk by providing emergency food parcels,” he said.

“They should be supported in providing services for communities and not be forced by this federal government to spend their time fighting for funding.

“I therefore call on the government to immediately renew the emergency funding to Diversitat so they can continue to provide the much-needed services to the Geelong region to support the most vulnerable.”