The territory will need to do more to fund and target homelessness and other housing support services to turn around concerning findings about reoccurring homelessness in Canberra, the Homelessness Minister has said.
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Rebecca Vassarotti said she was really concerned by findings in an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, which showed the number of people experiencing repeat instances of homelessness in the territory was growing.
Ms Vassarotti said there needed to be both more investment in specialist homelessness services while also targeting the supports that were already in place.
"It's really clear to me that we're not going to solve homelessness by just focusing on the specialist homelessness services. This is around looking at the pressures across the board in terms of housing stress," Ms Vassarotti said.
The Homelessness Minister said the government needed to consider gaps in its human services system and build on relationships between services that had begun to strengthen through the COVID pandemic.
"I think partnership is actually a really clear thing that we need to do. It's one of the things that actually came out through the COVID experience, there are much stronger relationships across the human services system - we want to build on that into this next phase," she said.
Ms Vassarotti said the base level funding for specialist homelessness services in the territory had grown from about $20 million in 2018-19 to about $30 million in 2021-22.
"So absolutely additional investment is really important but it's also around us working out what we need to do in terms of providing supports to really crack chronic homelessness," she said.
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Ms Vassarotti said the government had also been working with the support sector to understand what homelessness looked like in the territory.
"These are really deep issues that we'll need ongoing work; we're not going to solve these issues overnight but I'm really hopeful with increased investment, really working with the sector to understand where our gaps and working across the broader human services system that we will start to see a shift in those issues, particularly around chronic homelessness, which is a real concern for all of us," she said.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's Specialist homelessness services 2020-21 report showed there were 990 people experiencing persistent homelessness in the ACT, an increase of 165 people since 2018-19.
The number of people who had, in 2020-21, returned to homelessness in the ACT after a period of secure housing was 320, an increase of 15 people since 2018-19.
The number of people returning to homelessness had fallen nationally by 670 people to 16,100 in the same period.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
