Last week Andrew attended the SMBI Homelessness Outreach hub at the Russel Island Recreation Hall.
It is a great initiative that is driven by Redland City Council with the vision being: to work together to help more SMBI residents flourish, through appropriate, affordable, safe and accessible accommodation.
There were a range of local and mainland support services contributing to solutions. These services are doing wonderful work attending to the triage needs that we have in the SMBI community. In support, the representatives from the State Government (Dept Communities, Disability Services and Seniors) who attended were looking in part at how to enable capacity building for these community service organisations.
Triage services are required where there is a crisis, and they attend to urgent needs. These services are crucial because lives are saved at the point of effect culmination. Some of the effects that the SMBI is experiencing is domestic violence, community violence, alcohol and substance abuse, anxiety, loneliness and depression. These effects are visible every day as you catch the ferry and go to the shops.
In addition to addressing the urgent needs, we must also put considerable effort into addressing the important but hidden causes of these effects. Without this focus on addressing the causes, our community members will continue to go through the mincer, and as the community grows there will be more people requiring triage services.
We have all heard that prevention is better than cure, however prevention requires discipline, persistence and systemic change.
One of the significant contributors to the cause of the societal issues that we experience in this community (and Australian society as a whole) is housing stress. In order to grow a resilient community, housing stress must be reduced. Housing stress results from our housing (market) system. With this being the case, the best way that we know to reduce housing stress over the long term is to remove properties from the market and provide safe, secure and affordable accommodation. This requires time, focus, effort and a community investment.
In the near future we will be calling on the community to invest in its wellbeing.