Homelessness is a crisis beyond Hosier Lane

Homelessness is not confined to the streets of Hosier Lane. It is a nationwide crisis affecting our cities, suburbs, rural and regional areas.

No part of Australia has been untouched by the rising tide of poverty, domestic violence and mental illness - the three leading causes of homelessness today.

In Melbourne’s CBD, whether in Hosier Lane or elsewhere, people experiencing homelessness have nowhere else to turn, as housing options have dwindled to a mere handful of very short-term solutions.

Across the city and in regional towns, the availability of public and affordable housing is almost non-existent - an outcome of decades of underfunding and neglect. With waiting lists growing longer and more unmanageable, people are becoming homeless at a younger age and for longer than ever before. They are tired, hungry, frustrated, angry and increasingly unwell. This is a crisis that demands immediate action across the nation.

The Living Room has been in Hosier Lane since 2002 (not 2014 as stated by Adrian Doyle in his article in CBD News dated November 20, 2024) and well before it became a famous free tourist attraction showcasing gritty, street art. 

In fact, the "Keep Hosier Real" campaign in 2014 helped to block a major redevelopment that proposed new boutiques, a road and a hotel in Hosier Lane putting an end to the true grit and street art of Hosier Lane. It was worth preserving and street artists and local residents joined together to protest. Again in 2020, when a developer proposed a major hotel on the site of the Youth Projects building, 127 local objections were lodged.

The reality of Melbourne's poverty and homelessness reveals itself at times in challenging behaviours in Hosier Lane and elsewhere. The impact of drug addiction, the unsightliness and fear felt by some is understandable. But it is important to know what is not seen or heard is the tireless work going inside our building.

A small team of dedicated doctors, nurses, counsellors and client support worker turnout six days a week in the frontlines of homelessness. We are not police nor security guards. Anti-social behaviour is reported to the police regularly by Youth Projects when it occurs. We have zero tolerance for aggression inside our building and we don't want it outside our building either. Our options are, however, limited, and are caused by a convergence of factors we did not cause.

Transferring the problem of homelessness to someone else's doorstep (whose?) is the most common response. People also want more policing. Perhaps more arrests. But what would be most helpful would be a deep investment in countering the poverty and other root causes of homelessness, such as an immediate expansion of both acute and outreach mental health services.

The availability of mental health support and drug rehabilitation places is vanishingly small and shrinking further. As with housing, we have very limited means to refer an individual who may be experiencing a mental health episode to ongoing, sustainable treatment. It is common for that same individual to be seen back on the streets again within 24 hours, when in our professional judgement, more intensive help is needed.

The idea that Youth Projects has a magic wand that would conjure up an immediate response to the nation's homelessness problem is fanciful.

But what isn't acknowledged is the 19,608 episodes of care we deliver inside our building during the past 12 months, comprising 

• GPs and nurses inside tending to 2326 patients this year, an increase of 786 appointments in 2023
• 520 AOD counselling appointments
• 2411 showers
• 16,000 instances of food, laundry, showers and material aid provided 
• Assistance with employment seeking, housing, Centrelink and generally navigating a complex and confusing support system

And many other services that the public does not see.

In addition, the general public may not be aware of the lifesaving difference that is made by the two Youth Projects outreach teams that quietly leave the building most nights of the week delivering health care and overdose safety on foot. Last year these nurses delivered 3743 outreach nursing episodes on the street (for example: asthma, wounds, infections, diabetes).

We don't apologise for our impact, or our care and empathy for the most vulnerable people in our community, or for providing a place where help is available without cost or judgement.

The CBD’s rough sleeping population are in much better shape, being helped to stabilise and stay safe thanks to the work of Youth Projects and other such groups. This is a direct benefit to the community and should be valued.

Our funding has only increased by 1.6 per cent over the past three years while the demand for our service has increased by 57 per cent. This year, we submitted 1200 housing referrals but only 151 resulted in actual housing outcomes due to the shortage and the structures of an utterly broken system.

The Victorian government's "Big Social Housing Build" is far too little and too late. Only about 10 per cent of the public housing that we need has been promised and is years away from delivery. 

As a side note, Youth Projects spent 12 months scoping out an alternative site in 2018-2019, to no avail. By location and cost, we could find no viable alternative location. We then invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of our hard-won reserves (with significant pro bono contributions) to renovate and provide extra capacity in response to the predictable, unchecked, ongoing rise in homelessness in our midst. 

We are not the problem. And homelessness is everyone's problem. Melburnians can’t transfer this issue elsewhere, nor criminalise or underestimate our way out of an entrenched, nationwide problem. Domestic and family violence, mental illness, long term poverty and trauma are the main drivers of homelessness. This is where genuine solutions lie. 

Melanie Raymond OAM - chair of the board at Youth Projects