Three years to the day before the opening of the Commonwealth Games, Australia's peak body for homeless services is calling on the government to provide funding to avert a "catastrophe" in the regions and a disaster around the state.
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The Council to Homeless Persons (CHP) has today issued a call for the Victorian government to provide funding of $268.8 million over the next four years to continue to grow a highly successful accommodation and support program.
With the state in the grips of a housing crisis, and the Games set to increase the pressure, funding the H2H (From Homelessness to a Home) program is the "single biggest" thing the government can do to support people at risk of homelessness," CHP CEO Deborah Di Natale told the Bendigo Advertiser.
"The other part of the story is to increase social housing across the board, both in regional and urban [areas]," she said.
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A total of 106 Bendigo region households are among the 416 in regional Victoria being supported by H2H, which with its funding guaranteed only until June, was in danger of being "gutted", the peak body said.
"We're really concerned that Bendigo and the wider region will see an increase in people sleeping rough if the funding isn't extended," Ms Di Natale said.
"We think that unless the investment comes, the outcomes for people will be catastrophic."
Created by the Victorian government during the height of the pandemic to transition people from emergency accommodation into stable housing, the program is based on a model pioneered in Finland that has attracted international acclaim.
The head of the program's provider in Bendigo, Haven Home Safe, said staff had seen H2H's "enormous impact".
"We have clients who, through H2H have gone from being homeless to having steady employment, a secure support network and self-managing their own rental tenancies," Haven Home Safe CEO Trudi Ray said.
CHP is also calling for at least 30 per cent of the athletes village accommodation to be made social housing after the Games.
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