Media Release by Senator the Hon Amanda Vanstone

Centacare To Combat Indigenous Family Homelessness In Salisbury

I am pleased to announce that Centacare has been chosen to deliver early intervention services designed to prevent Indigenous family homelessness in the Salisbury area.Indigenous families living in and around Salisbury will really benefit from the quality family, community and housing support services Centacare has to offer.

They are currently the highest performing Job Network provider in Adelaide for Indigenous clients and have strong links with other Indigenous providers.

This project is one of the eight services that are part of a national pilot program to help 1,000 Australian families at risk of homelessness.

By combining the expertise of government and local communities, the Family Homelessness Prevention Pilot (FHPP) will help us to better understand the problems that can lead to families becoming homeless.

Centacare will receive $330,000 over two years as part of the National Homelessness Strategy. The Strategy will provide funding of $5 million over three years to eight pilots that focus on families at a high risk of homelessness.

Families participating in the pilot will have access to free family, community and housing support services.

Extra funding has also been provided so that local Centrelink staff and social workers can provide intensive, high priority support to families, backing the efforts of the local service providers.

This approach reflects the Government’s view that it is far more effective, in terms of the costs to both families and the community, to try to prevent homelessness rather than fix the problems when things go wrong.