Together Home Program
Ms Cate Faehrmann: The Greens support the motion and support the amendment moved by the Government, noting that it certainly could be more ambitious than to simply call on the Government to commit funding to its new homelessness strategy. It is pretty extraordinary that members have to amend a motion to do something that should have been a given. We should not need to debate it. However, it is important that a motion on homelessness receives broad consensus in this place and that all sides work together.
Homelessness is on the rise in most parts of New South Wales. A recent report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that the inner west of Sydney had the highest increase of people seeking help from homelessness services. There were 1,496 people receiving help in 2022-23, compared with 1,251 people the year before. That is quite extraordinary. The inner west is followed closely by Canterbury-Bankstown, Penrith, Sydney and then Wollongong. The average wait time for people who are homeless to access housing and services is up to five years. Another extraordinary thing—and it is not a statistic, because every statistic is a person who is in extreme need, and no doubt trauma, at not having a roof over their head or safe and secure housing—is that one out of every two people in New South Wales seeking help because of homelessness does not receive it. They have to be turned away because the services are full. One-third of those people who are turned away are First Nations people.
For many decades, members in this Chamber and in the other place—in fact every Parliament in the country, including the Federal Parliament—would have debated homelessness issues. The House calls on the Government to commit funding to its new homelessness strategy. We urgently need an increase in the availability of public housing and temporary accommodation. Together Home was a very good program and the people who it helped have spoken about how much it changed their lives. I certainly hope that the Government's homelessness strategy will include and support good programs like that because they make a difference on the ground. We support the motion and look forward to more action and more funding.
Full text of the motion:
Natasha McLaren Jones moved:
(1) That this House notes that:
(a) the Together Home program was initiated in July 2020 by the former New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Government to provide leasing and support packages for people who were sleeping on streets into stable long-term accommodation linked with wraparound support;
(b) in 2021 the former New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Government expanded the program to include an Aboriginal‑led Together Home model in the Central Coast that would deliver 35 leasing and wraparound support packages over two years across the region;
(c) the high needs packages are tailored to the needs of complex clients that could not be met in other ways; and
(d) by January 2023 the Together Home program had successfully delivered 1,117 packages, including 105 high‑needs packages, and housed 1,092 clients.
(2) That this House further notes that:
(a) Homelessness NSW, the leading agency for homelessness in the State, has urged the Government to allocate an additional $62 million over three years to the Together Home program;
(b) the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and its partners at the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, conducted an independent evaluation of the program; and
(c) an interim report was released in February 2024, which highlighted the success of the program and the imperative of developing a sustained plan to maintain the Together Home program.
(3) That this House urges the Government to provide assurance to the homelessness sector and to community housing providers regarding the future funding of the Together Home program in the upcoming budget and to ensure its continuity without interruption.