What is Homelessness?
Having a home is essential to a person’s health and wellbeing. Unfortunately, not all Australians have the same access to safe and affordable housing. The absence of a home, what we call homelessness, is a deeply distressing and isolating experience, cutting people off from their community and making it extremely difficult for them to actively participate in our society. Even simple things like attending school, going to work or getting to medical appointments are very hard when you do not have a stable home.
There are many forms of homelessness, ranging from living on the streets, in cars, squats, couch surfing, staying in rooming houses or living in other temporary types of accommodation or with friends and family in highly crowded circumstances. Contrary to popular belief, most people who experience homelessness don’t live on the streets (also known as sleeping rough). Rough sleeping makes up around 7 per cent of homelessness while the remainder is ‘hidden homelessness’, living in rooming houses, on couches or over-crowding. Here in Dandenong, we have the highest level of homelessness in Victoria (148 per 10,000 people or 2,366 people ABS, 2021, Flatau and Lester 2023, p. 32). On the other hand, the City of Greater Dandenong ranks 23rd amongst Victorian councils for social and affordable housing. There is simply not enough social and affordable housing in our city for everyone who needs it.
This is what we are trying to change with the Dandenong Zero project, which is trying to end rough sleeping homelessness as a first step toward ending all homelessness in the City of Greater Dandenong.
Homelessness is ended when people move into safe, sustainable, long-term housing of their choice. This includes public or community housing, private rental or private ownership that meets an acceptable minimum standard of a self-contained dwelling with its own kitchen and bathroom facilities. The person must have security of tenure evidenced by a signed tenancy agreement. Long-term housing includes aged care and may include long-term special residential services.
What is Council doing?
Council has partnered with Launch Housing to implement a new initiative ‘Dandenong Zero’, the latest Victorian Zero project following Port Phillip, Frankston and Stonnington, with Yarra recently commencing in July 2023. Dandenong Zero is a collaboration between Launch Housing and the City of Greater Dandenong to end rough sleeping homelessness in our municipality.
What is Dandenong Zero?
Dandenong Zero started in July 2022 and is a collaboration between the Greater Dandenong City Council and Launch Housing which brings the local service system together around a 'By Name List' of all people sleeping rough. Our partners include our local entry point WAYSS, Monash Health, ERMHA, The Salvation Army, Cornerstone, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Centre for Multicultural Youth, Bolton Clarke, and Wintringham. The project also has many enabling partners including the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Housing Victoria, the Department of Justice and Community Safety, Victoria Police, and the Southern Homelessness Network.
The 'By Name List' (BNL) is carefully and securely held by the specialist homelessness system for the purpose of ending their homelessness. People are added to the list when we meet them sleeping rough and then our combined resources provide support to move along a pathway out of crisis and back into stable, long-term housing, one person at a time.
The goal of Dandenong Zero is to achieve Functional Zero homelessness for people sleeping rough in the City of Greater Dandenong by July 2025. Functional Zero homelessness will be reached when the number of people entering and experiencing rough sleeping homelessness within a month is less than the average 6-monthly placement rate into long-term housing. Once achieved it must be sustained and any future experiences of rough sleeping homelessness in Dandenong be brief, rare, and non-reoccurring. This will be because the housing and support resources required to end rough sleeping homelessness are efficiently coordinated and sufficient to meet the needs of all people who sleep and live in the City of Greater Dandenong.
It is an ambitious but necessary goal, and we believe that by setting ourselves this target we will collectively get the best out of ourselves and our community, securing the housing and support we need to end homelessness and providing the opportunity and hope that we all need to live and thrive in our municipality.
If you want to know how we are progressing, take a look at our monthly data dashboard.
Where can I find help?
Contact the following service providers if you are experiencing homelessness.
- WAYSS – 9791 6111
- Launch Housing via the Housing Victoria Crisis and Emergency line – 1800 825 955
- The Salvation Army – 1800 627 727
- Ask Izzy: finding help wherever you are.
