New Federal Housing and Homelessness Minister Julie Collins will outline the new Government’s plans to solve Australia’s housing crisis at the National Homelessness Conference in Canberra today.
Convened by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and Homelessness Australia, the 3-day conference will examine the serious housing affordability and homelessness challenges being faced by all Australians, and the significant impact on those experiencing, or at risk of homelessness.
After two and a half tumultuous years as the country has faced the pandemic, a series of natural disasters, and now serious cost of living pressures – the conference will examine the how the governments, housing and homelessness service providers and the community can best respond to these challenges and best support our most vulnerable Australians.
This year’s conference program will examine the impacts of these big external issues, but also the myriad of challenges being faced by service providers on the ground daily.
Importantly, with a change of government at the federal level for the first time in nearly 10 years, there is a great opportunity for systemic reform in the way our policy makers at all levels support those experiencing, or at risk of homelessness.
Major sessions across the program include:
- How COVID-19 homelessness policy responses can inform a national strategy
- The opportunities to better support Indigenous Australians facing homelessness
- The impact of climate induced natural disasters on the homeless
- Learnings from Scotland – a country with a national plan to end homelessness
- Public awareness – lessons from a national homelessness campaign
As well, the conference concurrent sessions will allow for in-depth coverage of issues being faced by homelessness service providers including workforce capacity, homelessness in regional Australia, implementation of Housing First, embedding lived experience voices in homeless responses, child protection and many more.
The Minister’s address will take place at 3.00pm at the Royal Theatre, National Convention Centre Canberra.
View the full conference program at the official conference website: https://ahuri.eventsair.com/
New AHURI research
In addition, AHURI will release a new research report ‘Urban Indigenous homelessness: much more than housing’ on Wednesday 10 August.
The research finds that homelessness responses for Indigenous Australians need to be culturally appropriate, respect Indigenous perspectives and focus on safety and understanding ahead of non-Indigenous concepts of home.
.jpg){kind=tracking}
