Introduction to the social services and community sector
Going Home Staying Home- members feedback
1. Going Home, Staying Home : Members
Feedback
Presented at Yfoundations General Meeting
14 August 2012
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
2. APPROACH TO REFORMS
“The reforms do provide the sector with an opportunity at how we can do things better and
differently than we do currently.”
“We need to ensure that we do not discard things that are working well just for the sake of
doing something different”.
•Positive v Negatives of reform
•Consultation paper’s view of the sector
Positives v Negatives of reform
Negative view of SHS
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
3. LACK OF EVIDENCE
“The reforms do provide the sector with an opportunity at how we can do things better and
differently than we do currently.”
“We need to ensure that we do not discard things that are working well just for the sake of
doing something different”.
•Case for reform provides no evidence to support
conclusion on operation of SHS
•No evidence used to support its building blocks for
reform
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
4. Houselessness and Crisis Focused
“The title of the process, Going Home, Staying Home, has this inbuilt assumption that going
home is the right option when it comes for young people”
“Most services do still continue to support clients after they leave services”
•Focus on housing outcomes-no consideration of
the other needs of young people
•Are services too crisis focused?
Positives v Negatives of reform
Negative view of SHS
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
5. The role of affordable housing
“ The SHS Sector isn't causing homelessness, nor are they responsible as a sector in isolation
to prevent it”
“ How can you provide a better response when the issue is that there is not enough housing?”
“The assumption of the paper is that the specialist homelessness service is not working because
of the sector. The paper and the government is not looking at the systemic context that impacts
homelessness”.
•Prevention v Early intervention
•SHS blamed for things outside of its control
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
6. Streamlined Access
•Problem of too many doors and too many door
metaphors!
•Is this a SHS issue or an issue with mainstream
services?
•Views of young people
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
7. Individualised approaches
“Individualized funding has the positive of increased flexibility to spend money on things
that are not accommodation”.
“Individual funding packages are identified as a potential way to deal with individual issues
and not a reality for homelessness”.
•Individualised approaches already in operation
•Individual support packages
Yfoundations
Creating a future without youth homelessness
Editor's Notes
Yfoundations is taking NSW Government on face value and seeing GHSH as a genuine opportunity for reform the SHS and to strengthen their responses to homelessness. During consultations with the sector the positives that reform can bring have been acknowledged. However there are also some concerns- in particular in relation to the continued operation of small services. There appears to be assumption in the consultation paper that the SHS is broken and in need of repair- people we have consulted have spoken of the many effective aspects of SHS that need to be retained.
The consultation paper states that it is relying on ‘limitations of the current SHS system that have been consistently identified by homeless people, their advocates and homelessness services’. However, the consultation provides no specific reference to evidence that it has relied on its identification of the gaps in the current SHS. Yfoundations will be calling on NSW Government to identify evidence based reforms. But we also believe that this is an opportunity for us a sector to them what works. We can set the agenda for reform
The consultation paper make no distinction between adult and youth services. This is evident in relation to the issue of churning. Yfoundations is hearing from services that this simply is not an issue that is relevant to young people. Yfoundations will be arguing for what we think is obvious- that there needs to be a youth specific approach taken to the GHSH reforms. Young people have very different support needs to adults and this needs to be taken into account.
While housing security is an important need for young people, there are many others (for example continuing school). There is also an assumption imbedded in the paper that services are too crisis focused rather than conducting work in prevention and post crisis support. Is this is a true representation of the work of youth homelessness services? This is certainly not an accurate picture from what our consultations are telling us. The consultation paper confuses early intervention (which is possible for services to do) and prevention (which is the primary responsibility of government). When the document talks of the SHS becoming more focused on prevention of homelessness it actually obscures and shifts away government responsibility. Also within the consultation paper, SHS are being blamed for things that it is really not responsible for. This is evident in relation to the issue of churning or repeat client usage- without affordable housing options difficult to know where the NSW Government expects SHS to send people. Yfoundations will be calling on the government to once again see homelessness as a share responsibility and to commit to a solution that will actually address the source of repeat client usage- the provision of affordable long term housing.
One of the criticisms leveled at the SHS in the consultation paper is that it is difficult to access for clients. The consultation paper introduces the notion of ‘not too many doors’ or ‘no wrong doors’ and highlighting the need to have just one door so as to prevent homeless people having to tell their story over and over again. Services are telling us that this really is an issue that has already been addressed (and some time ago!). They are also telling us that the problem of repeating stories over and over again comes with young people who are attempting to access mainstream or government services.
