For the first time since 2013, an agreement between the federal and state governments has been reached to provide funding in a five-year blocks to let agencies plan long-term to fight rising homelessness.
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In Queensland, that means assured five-year funding for 89 non government organizations to provide 170 specialist homelessness services.
Friday marked the first time five-year funding has been agreed since the Coalition superceded Labor at the federal level and asked for tighter controls on where the homelessness funding was being spent.
The dispute has festered for five years, with funding extended year by year, instead of a block.
Now, Queensland agencies trying to help homeless people can now rely on five-year funding which is targeted to actual outcomes; finding homes and building low-cost housing.
“The sector has told me repeatedly that short term and insecure funding has been severely affecting service providers’ ability to develop workforce capacity,” Queensland Housing Minister Mick de Brenni said.
“It was impacting their ability to plan and develop services, and to attract quality staff because they could only employ people for a few months at a time.”
Karyn Walsh is the former director of the Queensland Council of Social Services and now runs Micah Projects, one of Queensland’s homelessness and domestic violence agencies.
“Everyone is very excited to hear of new five-year service agreements because it means better stability for the staff and also better planning,” Ms Walsh said.
“With that comes a commitment for extra planning to make sure services are more flexible to the needs of people who are homeless.”
It did not mean more funding, Ms Walsh said.
“It’s the stability of the funding that’s important and they are increasing the supply of (public) housing," she said.
“But it’s all good. There is a re-negotiation around outcomes and trying to be more flexible to help people who are homeless.”
The Queensland Housing Strategy, which promised to build 3825 social and affordable homes over the next 10 years, featured in last year's state budget.
It included 599 new homes in 2017-18, 599 in 2018-19 and 600 planned for 2019-20.
One newer idea for Queensland are youth foyers, essentially low-cost units rented out cheaply to young people who have left home, but have committed to returning to finish school, or finish a TAFE course or university.
The idea comes from the United Kingdom and is widely adopted by the Brotherhood of St Lawrence in Victoria.
Queensland has one in Logan and is investigating a second on the Gold Coast, where 40 units will be provided for young people aged 16 to 25, with live-in counsellors.
Ms Walsh said youth foyers are another way being explored to help a different class of people now facing homelessness.
However she the homeless were not only younger people, but more frequently families and middle-aged.
In greater Brisbane about 200 people "sleep rough" every night, with about 80 in the three-kilometre inner-city ring, according to Micah Project's "Street to Home" team.
