Adelaide is aiming to be the first city in Australia to end street homelessness in the CBD by 2020 and a record number of volunteers are gearing up to hit the city’s streets this week to connect with rough sleepers.
Every homeless person has a name and a record 280 volunteers this week, will spend a few nights walking the streets of Adelaide’s CBD, getting to know the people sleeping rough faceto-face.
Dubbed ‘Connections Week’ from today Monday 20 May until Thursday 23 May, the overall goal is to support more rough sleepers into secure housing to achieve Functional Zero1 street homelessness in the city by the end of 2020.
The initiative is part of the Adelaide Zero Project, which involves over 40 partnering organisations including inner city homelessness services, Principal Partner Bendigo Bank, state government, City of Adelaide, University of Adelaide and Flinders University.
“Since Adelaide’s first Connections Week during May last year, 133 people have been supported into secure housing – this is a remarkable achievement,” Don Dunstan Foundation Executive Director David Pearson said.
According to Pearson, these are people who were identified as sleeping rough and were put on Adelaide’s firstever By-Name List, to assist inner city homelessness services to know their names and coordinate housing and support – based on their individual needs.
“While the city has the most comprehensive data on street homelessness in the country, we still have a huge task ahead of us, as we know new people are regularly ending up on the streets.
“Tonight, 167 people will be sleeping rough on the streets and parklands of our city. Connections Week will establish whether this figure has gone up or down.”
This year, new data will be collected from people sleeping rough to include length of time living on the streets, number of people who have experienced repeat homelessness, mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and psychosocial disorders, and diagnosis of chronic diseases such as cancer, heart, liver and kidney disease.
Adelaide Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor said people sleeping rough are some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
“Connections Week is an opportunity to understand the needs of individual rough sleepers to ensure that service responses can best address their needs, including those for appropriate housing,” Ms Verschoor said.
Bendigo Bank’s State Manager SA/NT Paul Mertin says Bendigo Bank is very pleased to be able to continue its support for Adelaide Zero Project as Principal Partner.
“Bendigo Bank staff will again be volunteering during Connections Week to help enter and analyse the information collected from the people sleeping rough, so that an accurate assessment of the homelessness situation in Adelaide can be presented at a public Community Briefing on Thursday 23 May.”
The Don Dunstan Foundation initiated the Adelaide Zero Project with a diverse range of organisations in late 2017 to achieve a common goal – ending street homelessness in the City of Adelaide.
“There are no simple solutions to homelessness – it’s incredibly complex,” Pearson said.
“We do know that the biggest cause of homelessness is ignoring it, that’s why the Adelaide Zero Project is so important as it requires our community’s collective effort to tackle this problem.”