SPECIALIST HOMELESSNESS SERVICES

Ms JODIE HARRISON(Charlestown) (15:48:10):The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a 47 per cent increase in demand for specialist homelessness services across New South Wales. That figure represents 16,000additional people seeking support. Economic modelling shows that the pandemic, along with the economic recession, will place further strain on the already underfunded and under-resourced specialist homelessness services sector. In the Lower Hunter, Nova for Women and Children has exceeded all its targets for the 2019-20 financial year. That sounds like good news but that is not the case. By exceeding its targets, the service assisted 1,454 women and children between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020. The majority were fleeing domestic and family violence. The second largest group of clients were seeking help as a result of the housing crisis.

Agrowing cohort for specialist homelessness services is women over 50, who after rearing children accrue far less superannuation than their male counterparts and have not had the opportunity to buy a home throughout the course of their lives. This month Nova for Women and Children expanded its service delivery to the LakeMacquarie area, where it has opened The Hub. The Hub is a drop-in centre where homeless women can enter a safe environment, take a shower, have something to eat, receive support from workers and be referred to other services. Nova for Women and Children, along with all other specialist homelessness services across the State, is anticipating another increase in demand for its services over the rocky period ahead. An increase in demand for specialist homelessness services must be matched by an increase in funding.

These services were given the certainty of a 12-month contract until 2021. It came with an assurance from the New South Wales Government that this would transition to a threeyear plus two-year contract post June 2021. The New South Wales Government must come good on this funding commitment. Short-term funding contracts diminish the capacity of the sector to plan service delivery for what is now a homelessness and housing crisis. Women turn to organisations such as Nova for Women and Children when they have nowhere else to go. The link between homelessness and the lack of affordable housing and social housing cannot be overlooked. The correlation is clear and direct. In New South Wales 60,000 people are on the waiting list for social housing. That number represents an irrefutable failing by government to meet the existing and growing demand.

In Lake Macquarie east and Newcastle there are 1,683 applications on the social housing waiting list. The current wait time in that area for social housing is five to 10 years, and that is far too long. For these people and their families, that is five to 10 years of uncertainty, of instability, and of living in vulnerability and insecurity. It is a pathway that leads to homelessness for many. The pandemic offers a unique opportunity for the New South Wales Government to fast-track investment in social housing. Not only would the investment provide desperately needed homes for vulnerable people, but also the construction of new social housing would stimulate the local economy. There is social housing in every city and in towns and villages across New South Wales. Building new housing stock will not only create jobs in New South Wales; it will create jobs in regional communities where social housing can be constructed.

I call on the Government, as does Nova for Women and Children, to increase funding to specialist homelessness services in the upcoming budget by 20 per cent, to confirm ongoing certainty of funding for threeyear plus two-year contracts and to invest in the construction of 5,000 social housing properties every year for the next 10 years. I congratulate Nova for Women and Children on the work it does. I have worked with the organisation for a number of years and I take my hat off to the people employed there. They work with very vulnerable women, children and families, and often deal with stressful situations. I hope that they look after themselves as well as they do the people they look after.