Our core values of Compassion and Justice call for us to walk with and have empathy for others and to make the needs of the vulnerable paramount. One particularly vulnerable group are those experiencing homelessness. In Australia there are over 116,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night.

This week is Homelessness Week, which aims to raise awareness of the impact of homelessness on Australia via national and local community events, including providing information on the importance of housing as a solution and educating communities on how they can make a difference. Homelessness Australia provides the following information about homelessness in Australia:

• Homelessness is not “rooflessness”. Only seven percent of people without a home are sleeping rough. The majority of homelessness is hidden – people in crisis accommodation, rooming houses, insecure housing, overcrowded dwellings or couch surfing.
• Social housing in Australia has shrunk from 4.8 per cent of all homes in 2011 to 4.2 percent in 2021.
• One in seven people coming to homelessness services in Australia are young people on their own.
• In 2020-21, 114,000 people seeking homelessness services had to be turned away because of a lack of resources. That’s 20 per cent more than the year before.

In their media release for Homelessness Week 2022, the St Vincent de Paul Society (‘Vinnies’) wrote about their frontline members across Australia seeing a disturbing increase in the factors that are contributing to homelessness. “These factors include domestic and family violence, forcing women and children to seek safety elsewhere, as well as accidents and illness, death of a spouse, job loss, stagnant wages, rising rents and mortgage payments, a desperate lack of rental properties, especially in regional areas, and rising interest rates and consumer prices across the economy. Studies show that older women, with fewer savings and lower super, are now the fastest growing group facing homelessness.”

The theme of National Homelessness Week this year is ‘To end homelessness we need a plan’. Vinnies and other social sector groups are calling for all tiers of government to work closely together and with them so that positive and lasting changes can be made across Australia.

Educating our students to understand social issues such as homelessness and encouraging them to bring about positive change through their words and their actions is something we are strongly committed to at Kilbreda. Our Year 9 ‘BRIDGES to City’ program this term is one example of this where our students learn about homelessness in the City of Melbourne, participating in experiential educational sessions with an education session with ‘The Big Issue’ and ‘The Intersection’.  Earlier this week I spent some time with the Year 9 students hearing about their inquiry task which is centred around walking in solidarity with the most marginalised of society.  One of the topics they were focussing on was homelessness in Melbourne, what causes people to experience homelessness and how the situation could be improved.

Also this week we have our first Clothes Swap, which is an initiative of our Sustainability Group.  Proceeds from the clothes swap will be donated to Wellsprings for Women, one of our three Kildare Ministries community works and any left-over clothes will be donated to Vinnies to further support their work.

The staff at Kilbreda have also been donating socks this week, which will be distributed to people sleeping rough this winter via Vinnies volunteers. 

Loving God and Father,

We give you great thanks for the safety and security that most of us enjoy daily.
We remember that all good things come from your hand and are a testimony to your love for the world.
For those among and around us who do not enjoy these blessings and who are without a permanent home or shelter, we ask for your mercy and provision.
Please bring your peace and security to the homeless around us, whatever their story or circumstances.
May your Church be a place of welcome and peace for all who are in desperate need of love.
May the Holy Spirit inspire us to a deeper love for those without a home and to pursue justice for them.

Amen

Nicole Mangelsdorf
Principal