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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4544 ..
Mr Wood
: The answer to the member's question is as follows:(1) The figure of 531 represents people who might have been seeking emergency accommodation, but not all of these people would have been homeless at that time. The figure includes people who were:
Referred for brokerage assistance.
Seeking crisis accommodation for the night because their current accommodation posed difficulties, but could remain where they were (ie with friends or family) for a while longer when services had been unable to accommodate them.
The figure may include repeat callers as some people may have been counted more than once over the period.
The figure may also include people who have been asked to leave a Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) service because they presented a safety risk to other residents.
As to what happened to those callers:
Callers are offered counselling and an opportunity to discuss their options with trained Lifeline counsellors. They may receive information about a variety of services that may help them with long-term housing and related issues as well as referrals for meals, clothes, legal aid, advocacy and the CEAS fund if that is appropriate.
Some callers may choose to remain in their current situation, or may be helped to identify other accommodation options (eg think of friends or family who might support them with accommodation or finances for cheap accommodation options).
Lifeline offers an anonymous service, which means that the counsellors do not ask names of callers and do not follow up with callers, so what happens after the call is not determinable.
(2) The telephone numbers provided indicate people referred by Lifeline CEAS counsellors to available and appropriate ACT and Queanbeyan crisis accommodation services.
The Lifeline counsellors determine which services to refer callers to on the basis of the information provided to them by each organisation.
The callers are given phone numbers to call the service for an assessment interview.
Services make the assessment as to whether they can appropriately support any new client. They do this taking into account the support needs and circumstances of their current residents as well as those of the caller.
(3) The same criteria is used to determine potential eligibility and ineligibility for service.
(4) Commonwealth State Housing Agreement (CSHA) base funding.
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