Homelessness
Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (14:29): My question is for the Premier. Last week I met a mother with two young children. She came into my office after exhausting all local homelessness and support services, left with nowhere to go and facing the prospect of sleeping in her car with her two young children, a two-year-old and a five-month-old. My team and I spent hours calling housing organisations, churches and support services, desperately seeking help for this family. Every single organisation told us the same thing: ‘Tell the government we need more money.’ They are at capacity. They cannot help the growing number of families like hers who have nowhere to turn. Premier, it is completely unacceptable that in Victoria a mother with two young children is left without shelter because the very organisations meant to support her are telling us they do not have the funding to do so. What is the government doing to ensure homelessness organisations have the resources they need to support families in urgent need of assistance?
Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:30): In thanking the member for Ringwood for his question, he details what is a really difficult set of circumstances. I think when we hear that experience and the challenges that mum is having while having two very young children, it does really bring home the great challenge that we face as a society and a community about how we need to support people, whether they are in the very dire housing need that the member for Ringwood has identified or are vulnerable to being in that situation. That is why I understand that we need to continue to invest, both in funding for services for homelessness agencies and those who work in those crisis moments, but also the overall challenge is making sure we build more homes either as a government, which is what we are doing through our Big Housing Build, and making sure that in building more homes there is the identification of vulnerable groups who are prioritised through that process and then looking at what more we can do to build more homes. I say to the member for Ringwood – and I acknowledge the remarks that he has made about the work that his staff undertook to support this mum – if he is willing to provide further details to either me or the Minister for Housing, we could examine this matter further to see what more can be done.
Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (14:32): The homelessness organisations and support services we spoke to frequently exhaust the money they have available for emergency accommodation in the first three, four or perhaps five days of each calendar month when that funding arrives. What will the government do to address the ongoing, systemic monthly shortfalls in emergency funding budgets for these organisations?
Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:32): In addition to the comments I made to the member for Ringwood in my answer to his substantive question, in terms of his supplementary question I will seek further advice from the Minister for Housing about what more needs to be done. He has clearly identified some challenges that are occurring in his part of the world, in the Ringwood electorate – I have made an assumption that this mum is a constituent in the Ringwood community – and I will seek some further advice from the housing minister.