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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Wednesday, 31 March 2004) . . Page.. 1433 ..

them with that longer-term support so they are not continually stuck in a cycle of crisis. A youth night shelter would improve outcomes also at our existing youth shelters.

Some of the kids who would be best served by a night shelter and some immediate care end up at refuges where staffing resources are scarce and the single staff member on duty overnight is struggling to cope with clients who have possibly mental health issues, possibly drug and alcohol issues and possibly both. They need to be able to focus their attention on their longer-term clients, those with longer-term issues, and help them get their lives under enough control so they can find and maintain permanent accommodation. We should be supporting young people in short-term crisis in a different way.

As the committee report on the rights, interests and wellbeing of children and young people indicated, it is little wonder that when so many young people go in and out of refuges there is such limited capacity to work with clients towards resolving the underlying issues contributing to their homelessness. So a youth night shelter would relieve some of the pressure on our refuges, allow them to do the work and in the meantime help young people from falling into the cycle that they would need to be in to be accessing refuges.

A lot of evidence has been put forward about the need for such a facility, and this evidence has been gathering for a number of years. In March 2001, under the previous government, the Standing Committee on Health and Community Care called for the ACT government to research the needs and models of a youth night shelter, in consultation with young people and the relevant agencies.

When the Labor government took office, the Chief Minister made a ministerial statement, and I quote from the statement made in this house on 11 December 2001. The Chief Minister was talking about health and community care. He went on to say:

We will also conduct a feasibility study into the need for a youth night shelter.

Chief Minister, since that time, in 2001, we have seen little action on that promise. We have seen the Select Committee on the Status of Women make a recommendation that the government investigate the need for the establishment of a youth night shelter. That report was tabled in November 2002. In the government’s response of May 2003, the government supported the recommendation and said that it would be forwarded to the Homelessness Advisory Group for consideration in the context of the ACT homelessness strategy due for release in September 2003.

The rights, interests and wellbeing of children and young people report made a similar recommendation calling for the homelessness strategy to provide for a youth night shelter and for consultation with stakeholders. These recommendations were based upon the overwhelming evidence that something needed to happen; we just could not continue to talk and wait for further investigations to happen. We are now at least a year, two years, three years down the track from when these reports were being released, and the youth sector itself is not aware of any consultation that suggests that work on a night shelter is moving forward. So we could fear that the proposal is being passed around and left to quietly wait on a shelf somewhere.

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