Down and out in Newtown

The Centre, in partnership with the Housing Assistance and Referral Service and the Inner City Homelessness Outreach and Support Service, is doing a great service for community members in need. Your money will go to helping HARS and ICHOSS find safe and affordable housing for those who can’t.

Centre Coordinator Lisa Burns, along with her staff and members of the Newtown Mission, are assisting the people that are falling between the cracks in social services and below the poverty line. Once a demographic that was predominantly comprised of older men, there has been an increase in diversity in recent years with young struggling families and single women coming into the picture.

Burns described the current housing situation as dire, deserving more attention than it is receiving.

“It’s not a problem, it’s a crisis,” Burns said, highlighting the current increase of people in a situation of transient homelessness.

HARS and ICHOSS are assisting around 25 people a week into accommodation for the homeless, but it goes a small way to meeting the needs of the community, admits Burns.

“Safe, affordable housing is a right, not a privilege,” she said, drawing particular attention to the gentrifcation of Newtown and its shift toward becoming an exclusive area for the wealthy.

With the Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek, representing an area so close to the epicentre of the problem, it will be interesting to watch future developments and possible solutions to the housing crisis.

Assistance from HARS and ICHOSS can be sought on Monday afternoons between 3:20 and 4:20, but watch out for the barbies, grilling monthly, also on Mondays.

Photo: Rebecca Dudding: ICHOSS workers at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre for the launch of a new service for the homeless

Source: South Sydney Herald December 2007 www.southsydneyherald.com.au/