Homelessness Week is an annual week coordinated by Homelessness Australia to raise awareness of people experiencing homelessness, the issues they face and the action needed to achieve enduring solutions.
This year we are advocating that the Federal Government commence an annual plan to create 20,000 public and community housing homes from existing and new property. This will be an innovative and enterprising program generating an instant and longlasting fantastic multiplier effect throughout the economy. It will also addressing the shameful homelessness we have in Australia. One in every 200 of us Australians experiences homelessness every night. Do the maths.
There are some initiatives that hopefully will inspire others throughout Australia.
In early 2019, six tenants with a chronic experience of homelessness moved into the first six homes of the life-changing Harris Transportable Housing Project in Melbourne’s inner west.
The project is a partnership between Launch Housing and philanthropists Geoff and Brad Harris, using nine parcels of vacant government land in to create 57 tiny homes for people with a chronic experience of homelessness.
At a time when 116,000 people experience homelessness on any given night (up 14% from 2011 to 2016), this project demonstrates how unused government land can be repurposed to create safe, stable homes for people who urgently need them.