Some Facts

Tonight in Australia

• 100,000 Australians are without safe, secure, affordable housing.
• 1 in every 200 Australians has no home.
• Half of the people without a home will stay with friends or family.
• About 2 in every 7 will find a bed in a boarding house.
• 1 in every 7 will sleep rough on the streets of our cities and towns.
• A lucky 1 in every 7 will find a bed in the homeless service system.
• 1 in every 3 Australians without a home will be a child under 12.
• 1 in every 75 Australian children under 12 will access a homeless service this year.
• Every day 200 children and their families are turned away from the homeless service system.
• Each year more than 53,000 children and their parents stay in homeless services.
• Domestic violence is the greatest individual reason for women and children being without a home.
• Minority groups such as the indigenous, the mentally ill, youth, refugees, people released from prisons and shelters large families and single parents experience discrimination in the housing sector.
• Government – both State and Federal – are relinquishing their responsibility for public housing.
• Cost of rent is skyrocketing.
• There is a growing scarcity of affordable rental property.

More information available at:
• www.vinnies.org.au
• www.acoss.org.au

Safe, secure, affordable housing is diminishing.

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MARY MACKILLOP FAMILY SERVICES

MELBOURNE AND GEELONG

 

Mary MacKillop Family Services now continues the residential work of the Sisters of St Joseph, the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers.

For over 150 years, the Christian Brothers have being providing shelter and a home to young people unable to live at home. Now days the need is as great as ever.

On any one night MacKillop Family Services is responsible for about 90 young people in residential care and another 150 children and young people in foster care.

Recently, MacKillop Family Services funded a research project to explore the needs of young people transitioning from care to independent living. The report found that around one third of the young people leaving care struggle to find stable housing after they leave care. MacKillop Family Services has since then made three submissions to the Protecting Children reform process in Victoria and in each of these has submitted  that Child Protection services should continue to provide support, where needed, for young people who have been in care up to the age of 25 years.

Mary Davis rsj

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ST JOSEPH'S FAMILY CARE CENTRE

The Centre is a supported accomodation service for homeless families located in suburban Adelaide.

Mission Statement:

We strive to recognise and respect the dignity and self-worth of each person, to support and affirm them as individuals and families and to help them discover what they require to develop and grow.

 

Recently in one year, the Centre provided accomodation and a high level of support to 81 families (men, women and children) consisting of 226 people including, 148 children between the ages of 0 years to 16 years. The Centre's services are designed to help homeless people achieve the maximum possible degree of self-reliance and independence.

In this same period, 9,700 South Australians accessed Supported Accomodation Services for 14,700 episodes of homelessness including 4,850 accompaning children. Many others were turned away due to lack of vacancies.

Administrator

St Joseph's Family Care Centre

Adelaide.

 

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ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES IN THE FAR WEST AND FAR NORTH OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

 

Mary MacKillop recognised an opening to hospitality in her own heart.......to places and to people......for others to have a corner of her heart.

"I seemed in my prayer to be finding so many corners in my own heart for one place after another and one person after another." (Mary MacKillop 25-09-1873.)

 

Aboriginal people in communities in the Far West and Far North of South Australia continue to live and die in third and fourth world conditions in the privilege of a first world country.

In housing, welfare, education and health, Aboriginal communities in

South Australia suffer from extreme disadvantage and continue to live in wretched conditions in a first world country.

In the Josephite Year of a Right to a Home and in the spirit of Mary MacKillop, we are challenged to stand in solidarity to make a difference to the lives of people living in extreme poverty.

Where we live shapes our lives........

Where we live matters. It's about more than just a roof over our heads. It's about comfort, family, friends and neighbours and our aspirations for independence and security.

Where we live is important to our sense of place, to our sense of self and it connects us to our community.

               (Housing Plan for South Australia. March 2005.)

Today, Aboriginal families and children in the Far West and Far North of South Australia live in deplorable conditions.

It is common for Aboriginal households not to have working and consistent sewerage systems.

It is common for Aboriginal households not to have access to consistent electricity supply.

It is common for Aboriginal households not to have consistent water supply.

It is common for Aboriginal households to be overcrowded.

It is common for Aboriginal households to be denied access to private housing on racial grounds.

It is common for Aboriginal communities not to have access to consistent and effective housing maintenance.

It is common for Aboriginal communities not to have access to consistent rubbish removal systems.

It is common for children to live in dirty, cold, overcrowded homes with no`access to water, electricity, sewerage, furniture, bedding or food.

Where children live shapes their lives..........and their deaths.

 

Kenise Neill rsj

Coober Pedy, South Australia.