Celia Adams knows a swag is a poor substitution for a roof over one’s head, but with a drastic imbalance of people experiencing homelessness and available accommodation, it’s sometimes the best that under-funded services can offer.

Ms Adams is the chief executive of Beyond Housing and the chair of Victoria’s Council to Homeless Persons.

To her, neither role is just a job.

She genuinely cares about the homelessness crisis the country is experiencing, and wants to see every person who needs housing housed.

While that might seem unattainable given how far out of hand the situation is and how quickly the statistics continue to move unfavourably, Ms Adams is confident that with collective efforts, a solution can be found.

“I think any system that is inadequately funded won’t be effective,” she said.

“This problem has been in the making for a long time.

“I think around the ’90s, social housing represented about six per cent of all housing stock. It’s now down around three per cent. It’s simply not enough.”

Ms Adams said bipartisan support from governments to commit to providing an ongoing pipeline of social housing was essential.

“We can cut the funding pie any number of ways that we want. We’re still not going to have enough pie for everyone,” she said.

“We need more pie; it’s that simple.”

The Council to Homeless Persons suggests 6000 dwellings are required each year.

“Not just this year and next year, but years into the future,” Ms Adams said.

In the 2023-24 financial year, more than 100,000 people sought assistance from homelessness services in Victoria, an increase of four per cent from the previous year.

Around 60,000 of them were women, and 13,000 were working Victorians, a figure that rose 23 per cent in the five years prior.

For Beyond Housing specifically, in the 2024-25 financial year, 27 per cent of people it supported were aged under 25, 25 per cent were aged over 55, and more than six per cent were escaping family violence.

One-third of all people who are homeless in Australia are in Victoria.

“That is pretty alarming considering we in Victoria have the lowest proportion of social housing as a proportion of all dwellings,” she said.

Around 15 years ago, about 10 per cent of the people who presented to Beyond Housing were sleeping rough; without a mate’s couch under them, caravan walls around them, or any kind of solid roof over them.

That figure has grown to nearly 20 per cent.

“It used to be that our homelessness was hidden. We weren’t seeing examples of homelessness on the street, but we are increasingly seeing that now,” Ms Adams said.

“It’s really concerning, because whilst the ideal is to be able to say, here is some safe, secure, affordable, long-term housing, what we lack is across the entire continuum, right from that emergency and crisis accommodation into short to medium transitional housing, private rental and long-term social housing.

“To give an indication of scale, if every single person who lived in social housing in Victoria left those dwellings tomorrow, those dwellings would be full again (immediately) from the number of people waiting for housing.

“We are absolutely in crisis space.”

Ms Adams said it was heartbreaking for her and Beyond Housing’s staff to watch the hope fade from the face of someone who had walked through the organisation’s doors for help when they were told there were no properties available for them.

“From a crisis accommodation perspective, you’re at the whim of what is available in the market through motels and caravan parks; if there’s an event in the area over a weekend ... those places that we use for crisis accommodation are just simply not available,” she said.

“We have to go down the path of things like swags, sleeping bags, things like that.

“Fundamentally, I hate giving those because it’s simply not good enough, it’s not an adequate enough response, but if it’s the choice between a tent or a swag or nothing, the tent and swag win every day of the week.”

Ms Adams said Homelessness Week was an opportunity to think about what it meant to be homeless in our country, and locally.

“Thinking about what’s brought us here, why isn’t it resolved?” she said.

Ms Adams encouraged people to donate swags and new bedding or to make a monetary donation to any service that helped the homeless during Homelessness Week.

She said workplaces might also consider signing up to Beyond Housing’s workplace giving scheme so their staff could opt to donate a small amount of their weekly wages to provide ongoing support for the plight.

Beyond Housing is the main entry point for homelessness services in the Goulburn Valley and north-east Victoria.

It aims to link people with emergency accommodation, appropriate supports, and eventually, get people into long-term, safe, secure and affordable housing.

In the 2024-25 period, Beyond Housing spent over $700,000 on more than 10,000 nights of crisis and emergency accommodation for those in need.

It will build a further 300-plus social housing dwellings across the Goulburn Valley and North-East Victoria, valued upwards of $100m, by the end of 2027.

To contact your nearest Beyond Housing service, phone 1800 825 955.

Homelessness Week takes place from Monday, August 4, to Sunday, August 10.

To hear more, you can listen to the full interview with Ms Adams on our podcast at sheppnews.com.au

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Thursday, 29th June 2023

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