Melbourne's Road Home

Homelessness is an issue that impacts the whole of society and only a society willing to partner together to address homelessness will succeed in alleviating and ultimately eliminating homelessness. The Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation’s ‘Melbourne’s Road Home’ initiative is an outward expression of this belief.
In line with a three year, seven million dollar ($7,000,000) commitment to addressing homelessness in our community, in 2009 the Foundation made two signature grants to innovative projects that are having a genuine impact on homelessness. (See below)
Melbourne’s Road Home, the Foundation’s Homelessness Initiative has over the last two years held effective and engaging forums on homelessness. The 2008 forum focused on partnerships and the 2009 forum “Their Voices”, the personal experience of homelessness.
On August 26 this year, the Melbourne’s Road Home forum will be a day to see how far down the road we’ve come and to answer the question: What can we do to help? By ‘we’ we mean everyone, from government to business to community and everyone in between.
Forum III will be structured according to the different life stages that people might be in when they experience homelessness.
The keynote presentations will reflect these life stages: Growing Up – Kids without a home, The Middle Years – Domestic violence, and Getting On – Ageing & homelessness. Enquiries to Bill Snaddon (Bill.Snaddon@lmcf.org.au )
Within this initiative the Foundation has established the Melbourne's Road Home Alliance. The Alliance is a network of individuals and organisations that stand in agreement in acknowledging that homelessness in Australia is unacceptable. The Alliance meets quarterly and its Declaration states:
“Homelessness affects all of society and only a society willing to join together will succeed in alleviating homelessness and ultimately ending it.”
Signature Grants
Salvation Army Project 614
A key part of the Melbourne’s Road Home Initiative is 24/7 Melbourne’s Road Home, a 24/7 Community Response Team capable of providing both a mobile and centre-based response to homelessness in the Melbourne CBD and surrounding suburbs. This service can be accessed via a 24 hour telephone contact system connected to a mobile response team, based at the Salvation Army’s Project 614 at 69 Bourke Street, Melbourne.
The needs of those experiencing homelessness who are in the city, or gravitating to the city, require a service that will link them into support that will meet their particular needs. 24/7 Melbourne’s Road Home is a point of contact and resource to assist in connecting with other Melbourne – based services; including Melbourne Citymission’s Frontyard Youth Services and the St Kilda Crisis Centre. The success of 24/7 Melbourne’s Road Home lies not only with the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Project 614, but also the community as a whole, as we work together to assist those experiencing homelessness.
Sacred Heart Mission
Sacred Heart Mission is piloting a groundbreaking service delivery model, A Journey to Social Inclusion (J2SI) that tackles chronic homelessness, one of society’s seemingly intractable social issues. J2SI focuses on addressing the underlying causes of a person’s homelessness and equipping them with the skills to reconnect to the mainstream community and build social networks outside of the homeless subculture.
The J2SI pilot involves 40 participants and run for three years from September 2009.
What is J2SI aiming to do?
1. Demonstrate that a long term, well resourced and intensive service model can permanently end a person’s chronic homelessness.
2. Demonstrate the economic benefit of ending a person’s chronic homelessness by analysing the pattern of service usage and economic participation of participants.
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Shane Austin
Leader - Community Strategy
Stepping Up 2009
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