South Australian homeless centre expects to hit capacity amid calls for greater government support

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A homelessness centre in Adelaide says a growing demand for their services means they'll have to start turning people away within a few years. The centre's chief executive wants the South Australian government to increase social housing and consider other ways to ease homelessness.

Transcript

00:00When 75-year-old Phil became homeless about a year ago, the Hutt Street Centre helped

00:07him get a roof back over his head.

00:09I got some housing reasonably quick and assisted there, but if it had gone on much longer,

00:18I would have really been in strife.

00:20Hutt Street's wellbeing centre offers a meal, a shower and connects people with other

00:26support services.

00:28It says there's been a 6% increase in demand this past year due to the cost of living

00:33crisis.

00:34We're seeing young couples who up until a month ago were very comfortably living in a

00:39rented apartment and then the cost of utilities, the cost of groceries and the landlord turns

00:44up and says well I've got to up your rent by 30%.

00:47Mr Burns says if demand for the service keeps growing at the current rate, they'll reach

00:52capacity in 2028 and have to start turning people away.

00:57The challenge is there's not many other services for them to go to.

01:01So they will be left traumatised and that's what concerns us.

01:06The centre wants to see more social housing allocated and for the state government to incentivise

01:12landowners to make privately held vacant properties available for accommodation.

01:16The state government says they've invested tens of millions of dollars in homelessness services

01:22and are building a range of housing options.

01:25We've got a big pipeline of housing of all forms of housing, public housing, community housing,

01:31affordable sale, affordable rental, rent to buy and market housing.

01:36More homes that can't come soon enough.

01:37More homes that can't come soon enough.

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