2018 Australia Day Honours List: Ken Marchingo of Haven; Home Safe to be appointed a Member of the Order of Australia

He is set to be appointed a member of the order, ‘for significant service to the community through social welfare programs and associations, particularly for assistance for the homeless’.

Mr Marchingo, the head of the state’s first registered housing association, said the recognition was both an enormous honour and an enormous surprise.

“I had no idea this was happening until I got a letter some weeks ago and I looked at it and thought, ‘Now this is a pretty elaborate hoax,”” he joked.

The true significance of the appointment for Mr Marchingo and his family became evident just as our interview drew to a close.

Somebody clearly thought all the hours he had devoted to Haven; Home, Safe and those in need of its services were worth it.

The not-for-profit organisation is estimated to have housed and helped more than 100,000 people in the past 24 years, according to Mr Marchingo.

“I do get a bit of joy out of the fact we’re a Bendigo-based service and we’ve grown into Melbourne,” he said.

The organisation was born of a need to help people experiencing homelessness in Bendigo.

“In this process of looking after homeless people in Bendigo, we now look after homeless people all over Victoria,” the proud Bendigonian said.

He said Haven; Home, Safe had grown to become one of the largest not-for-profit charities in Australia.

“We have a balance sheet well north of $300 million worth of assets,” Mr Marchingo said.

The organisation employs 160 staff across 10 offices.

“It’s gratifying when I push my trolley around the supermarket and I see people that I’ve helped or I know our service has helped,” Mr Marchingo said.

But it would be a mistake to confuse his pride in his work for complacency. His work is far from done.

Mr Marchingo was hopeful his appointment to a Member of the Order of Australia would provide opportunities to promote awareness of the drivers of homelessness and further explore solutions.

“Homelessness and the affordable rental housing problem we have is a choice that our politicians and our bureaucrats and our nation as a whole choose and make,” he said.

“The fundamental issues about why we have a broken and busted and overpriced housing market are all fixable without destroying the economy.

“They’re not simple fixes. They will take time. But without bipartisanship on this wicked social problem we will never see solutions.”

Mr Marchingo got his start in the industry as a rent collector for the housing commission.

“It was the only job I could get in 1983,” he said.

He had previously been working in the finance industry bit said he ‘got sick of ripping people off’.

Working as a rent collector for the housing commission wasn’t glamorous.

“Which, in social standing is like two steps below parking inspector and three steps below insurance salesman,” Mr Marchingo joked.

“But I loved it because in those days people at the housing commission saw the job as being evicting people who didn’t pay, and I saw the job as getting people a house who couldn’t find anywhere else to live.

“I didn’t fit in there at all… they said I was a boat rocker.

“And I have been rocking that boat ever since.”

To meet more of central Victoria’s 2018 Australia Day Honours List recipients, click here.