Homelessness

Jenny Smith, CEO, Council to Homeless Persons: We don’t often use the words homelessness and celebration together, but I think today, we are celebrating the launch of this edition of Parity. But more importantly, I think we’re celebrating what underpins this edition, and that is the partnership work of both the State Government and the wider homelessness and social housing sectors.

The Honourable Mick de Brenni MP, Minister for Housing and Public Works, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Digital Technology: Queensland is no stranger to homelessness. Homelessness has increased in Queensland by 14 per cent in the five years since 2011. It’s about having an honest conversation and asking a couple of really important questions – Can we do more to meet the needs of Queenslanders? Is it time for us, as a government, to have different settings to allow services to be able to improve and innovate? And can we capture better data and establish more insightful evidence into what works?

So I want to commend everybody, and I want to commend the philosophy of Parity itself, for shining a light on the truly incredible work that everybody, who turns up everyday in this sector, already achieves.

Melanie Nicholls, Action Director, Homelessness Policy, Housing and Homelessness Services, Department of Housing and Public Works: My key learnings were, I think, just picking up the very inspiring vibe of the partnerships and that it seems that everyone genuinely wants to work together.

Natasha Boyle, Acting Director, Homeless Programs, Housing and Homelessness Services, Department of Housing and Public Works: Despite those really quite scary statistics, the energy in the room today really taught us that everyone’s very positive. We’ve got a great base to draw on, and I think together, we can actually make some real improvements in people’s lives.

Shane Warren, PHD Student, School of Human Services and Social Work, Griffith University: Great speakers all morning, doing great work. It’s lots of really thoughtful service delivery happening across the State.

Annemaree Callander, CEO, Brisbane Youth Service: A great opportunity to get together with other providers and to hear some announcements from the Minister and the Department about their commitment to moving forward to solve the issue of homelessness in Queensland.

The Honourable Mick de Brenni MP, Minister for Housing and Public Works, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Digital Technology: I want to turn now to a very, very important concept and it’s called Partnering for Impact.

Christine Castley, Deputy-Director General, Housing and Homelessness Services, Department of Housing and Public Works: Well, Partnering for Impact is all about collaboration and about how the entire sector comes together to work to deliver better solutions.

The Honourable Mick de Brenni MP, Minister for Housing and Public Works, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Digital Technology: Assisting someone from homelessness, into stable, secure accommodation requires a sophisticated execution of a high level of skill. And both experience and skill they take time to develop and they require certainty and stability.

Today, I’m also pleased to announce $500 million in funding, from the Department of Housing and Public Works, for this sector, over the next five years.

Maria Leebeek, Team Leader, Micah Projects:I think we’ve been talking about government and sector partnership for a really long time. Because that five years gives you a greater certainty around what you want to do and how you want to do things. It holds a stable workforce.

Kristy Muir, CEO, Centre for Social Impact and Professor of Social Policy, University of New South Wales (UNSW): We can actually think about how we invest properly in that so in five years time,  we have better Census outcomes.

The Honourable Mick de Brenni MP, Minister for Housing and Public Works, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Digital Technology:  All of those things are the foundations of the Queensland Housing Strategy and if we continue to move in the right direction, to use every tool at our disposal, and use empathy as our guide, we can help out homeless friends, and have a more just and fair society.