Homelessness in focus after baby’s tent death
A state government is fast-tracking 100 beds for rough sleepers but admits it is nowhere near enough after the death of a baby in a tent put homelessness back on the agenda.
The NSW government has announced 100 new bedrooms to help those experiencing homelessness, a week after headlines about a rough-sleeping mother whose baby died in a tent shortly after birth.
Housing Secretary Rose Jackson said the total number of bedrooms delivered under the government’s Homeless Innovation Fund would be increased to 900, but admitted this number would not be enough.
“None of this will solve the problem on its own, but this is real action,” he told reporters.
“One of the most complex problems facing governments is homelessness.”
The announcement was welcomed by Georgia Hastings, who has previously experienced homelessness.
Miss Hastings lives with the voices in her head and struggles to find a permanent place to call home.
He lived first in a hotel, then in a backpacker hostel, in a stranger’s house, and finally on the streets.
Until he found the Haymarket Foundation, which provided him with housing.
“What I am most grateful for at the Haymarket Foundation is not just beds and meals,” Ms. Hastings said.
“I was hearing voices… I was even in love with one of them.
“It’s something you hide, (but) I was able to talk about it freely at Haymarket. Nobody was shy. They just accepted it as part of who I was, that acceptance changed something in me.”
Ms Hasting helped establish Sydney’s first hearing voices group with others in Haymarket and now co-chairs the support group for people with schizophrenia.
There are 254,571 households on the waiting list for social housing in Australia, according to Mission Australia.
Police found a 37-year-old woman with a dead child after being called to a homeless camp at Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina earlier this month.
The conditions were not deemed suspicious and attention was refocused on the housing crisis.
Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin said: “The disturbing truth is that tragedies like this don’t come out of nowhere; they are the result of a housing system that has broken down to the point where there is no safe housing or adequate support.” he said.
