Street to Home program finding social housing for rough sleepers
Canberrans are now having to wait as long as five years for access to social housing with a current backlog of more than three thousand people. But Saint Vincent de Paul's street to home program is trying to bridge the gap and find housing for some of the city's most vulnerable.
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TVTranscript
00:00So I got removed from home when I was about 11 and I was a state ward by the age of 13.
00:09I then went from 13 for the next 12 years or so on a drug-fuelled adventure that I could
00:17only tell you bits and pieces of because I can hardly remember any of it.
00:21So the Street to Home program is a program where we support about 40 to 50 companions
00:27at a time.
00:28These are companions that are either homeless or at risk of homelessness in the ACT.
00:32This is lovely J-Mo, our first companion that I've helped with accommodation that's made
00:37me a coffee.
00:38This is quite a nice moment.
00:39Really?
00:40Thank you so much.
00:41To be honest, you're the first person that I've made a coffee for in my new place, so
00:46great.
00:47I'm glad it could be you.
00:48When I came out here I was stoked because it's a freestanding place and I can call it
00:55I've got my own and hopefully soon I'll be able to have my kids over and start living
01:02life as you should live life.
01:05The process took around, I'd say around four years, even though I was on high needs and
01:10then on priority, Ben's been with me through most of that time.
01:16With cost of living and rentals increasing and JobSeeker and Newstart not increasing
01:20at the same rate, it's becoming more and more difficult to support those companions.
01:25It makes it incredibly difficult because the more people you've got applying for public
01:28housing, the longer the waiting list is going to be.
01:32Society, I think, needs to look at it as it's a rising issue and in a place like Australia,
01:38so wealthy and so vast, we shouldn't have people on the street.
01:44If I could, I'd advocate and lobby the government to build more refuges because there is absolutely
01:51nothing available for people that are on the street doing it hard.