Week ending: 8th May 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
About the project
It was a phone call the volunteers at the St Vincent de Paul Society are used to receiving.
Single father, three children, no place to go. Please, can you help?
The difference this time: a politician was making the call.
Six years ago, a Mudgeeraba conference on Queensland’s Gold Coast received a call from a local Member of Parliament who had a family in crisis standing before her with no emergency accommodation readily available.
The desperation of a family turning to a politician as a last resort was a warning the Society could not ignore.
At that time, the Gold Coast’s two emergency accommodation facilities, Blair Athol at Coolangatta and Still Waters at Arundel, were turning away 4000 people in a year. In 2009, it is expected the same facilities will turn away about 6200 people. Queensland has the second highest population of people who are homeless, with recent figures showing a steady increase to approximately 27,000 today.
John Millsom, president of the Mudgeeraba Conference, set out with another local Vincentian, Steve Murray, in the true spirit of Vincentians: to visit the homeless in the places they slept and where they went to eat to find out what should be done.
“After some investigation, we found that the situation was far worse than anyone could ever have imagined,” Millsom said.
“We soon realised that to truly make a difference to these people’s lives, we needed to give them a home, not just a roof over their heads.
“Clearly, there was no point in giving them a room for a few nights, then sending them back out to the street, or back to the cycle of couch surfing at friends.”
The St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland’s Families Back on Track (FBOT) project aims to construct 27 units of accommodation to actively combat homelessness in the South-East Queensland area.
The project, based at Arundel on the Gold Coast, will house up to 108 homeless single parents and their children, with two units allocated for families with disabilities, and a service delivery centre.
Inspiration for this type of housing came from Millsom’s discoveries on his investigation around the Gold Coast. He had seen a non-descript station wagon had pulled up alongside the beach’s toilet block. In the car was a father and his two young children, a boy of about five, and a two year old girl. The next morning, the father carefully bundled his kids into the showers, and they shortly reappeared, washed and ready for their day at school.
The same station wagon reappeared at the same time, just after sunset. The same small family spent the night in their car, before showering and leaving to face their life.
“You may be lucky to find one bed to spend the night in,” Millsom said, “but imagine if you had a family you needed to give shelter to also.”
State president of the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland, John Campbell, said the significance of the project is not just that it will house a significant number of families with nowhere else to go, it will offer also a myriad of vital programs to those living there to ensure they receive the necessary skills and support to break the cycle of homelessness.
“These services will include drug, alcohol and gambling addiction assistance, counselling, childhood education, parenting classes, cooking and hygiene classes and debt reduction through budget counselling,” Campbell said.
“We will help parents achieve the skills necessary to live independently and remove themselves from the welfare system, giving their children the best chance for a positive future.”
Residents will be encouraged to stay for a period necessary to complete the programs, and to ensure residents only leave when they feel ready to do so.
The success of FBOT on the Gold Coast will mean the project may be replicated throughout the State, and throughout Australia.
Millsom sees FBOT as just the first step in breaking the cycle of homelessness.The St Vincent de Paul Society is committed to solving the problem of homelessness through providing not just a house to those in need, but a home.
You can support this program by:
- Donating today on 13 18 12, visiting the website at www.vinnies.org.au/qld or sending a donation to PO Box 3351 South Brisbane 4151
- Consider making a lasting gift in your Will
- Please register for a regular email update at communications@svdpqld.org.au
Single father, three children, no place to go. Please, can you help?
The difference this time: a politician was making the call.
Six years ago, a Mudgeeraba conference on Queensland’s Gold Coast received a call from a local Member of Parliament who had a family in crisis standing before her with no emergency accommodation readily available.
The desperation of a family turning to a politician as a last resort was a warning the Society could not ignore.
At that time, the Gold Coast’s two emergency accommodation facilities, Blair Athol at Coolangatta and Still Waters at Arundel, were turning away 4000 people in a year. In 2009, it is expected the same facilities will turn away about 6200 people. Queensland has the second highest population of people who are homeless, with recent figures showing a steady increase to approximately 27,000 today.
John Millsom, president of the Mudgeeraba Conference, set out with another local Vincentian, Steve Murray, in the true spirit of Vincentians: to visit the homeless in the places they slept and where they went to eat to find out what should be done.
“After some investigation, we found that the situation was far worse than anyone could ever have imagined,” Millsom said.
“We soon realised that to truly make a difference to these people’s lives, we needed to give them a home, not just a roof over their heads.
“Clearly, there was no point in giving them a room for a few nights, then sending them back out to the street, or back to the cycle of couch surfing at friends.”
The St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland’s Families Back on Track (FBOT) project aims to construct 27 units of accommodation to actively combat homelessness in the South-East Queensland area.
The project, based at Arundel on the Gold Coast, will house up to 108 homeless single parents and their children, with two units allocated for families with disabilities, and a service delivery centre.
Inspiration for this type of housing came from Millsom’s discoveries on his investigation around the Gold Coast. He had seen a non-descript station wagon had pulled up alongside the beach’s toilet block. In the car was a father and his two young children, a boy of about five, and a two year old girl. The next morning, the father carefully bundled his kids into the showers, and they shortly reappeared, washed and ready for their day at school.
The same station wagon reappeared at the same time, just after sunset. The same small family spent the night in their car, before showering and leaving to face their life.
“You may be lucky to find one bed to spend the night in,” Millsom said, “but imagine if you had a family you needed to give shelter to also.”
State president of the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland, John Campbell, said the significance of the project is not just that it will house a significant number of families with nowhere else to go, it will offer also a myriad of vital programs to those living there to ensure they receive the necessary skills and support to break the cycle of homelessness.
“These services will include drug, alcohol and gambling addiction assistance, counselling, childhood education, parenting classes, cooking and hygiene classes and debt reduction through budget counselling,” Campbell said.
“We will help parents achieve the skills necessary to live independently and remove themselves from the welfare system, giving their children the best chance for a positive future.”
Residents will be encouraged to stay for a period necessary to complete the programs, and to ensure residents only leave when they feel ready to do so.
The success of FBOT on the Gold Coast will mean the project may be replicated throughout the State, and throughout Australia.
Millsom sees FBOT as just the first step in breaking the cycle of homelessness.The St Vincent de Paul Society is committed to solving the problem of homelessness through providing not just a house to those in need, but a home.
You can support this program by:
- Donating today on 13 18 12, visiting the website at www.vinnies.org.au/qld or sending a donation to PO Box 3351 South Brisbane 4151
- Consider making a lasting gift in your Will
- Please register for a regular email update at communications@svdpqld.org.au
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