Northern Sydney Housing & Homelessness Services Action Plan 2018-2021

Cover photo sources: Photo 1: Bridge Housing tenants and staff, 2018 Photo 2: SGCH tenants and staff, 2018 Photo 3: Women’s Housing Company tenants, 2018 Photo 4: Link Housing tenants, 2018

1 Introduction

From December 2018, community housing providers take a lead role in coordinating the social housing service system in Northern Sydney as the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) commences the withdrawal of housing services under the Social Housing Management Transfer program. In the Northern Sydney District, all 4,500 public housing tenancies, excluding a small number of Aboriginal Housing Office properties, will transfer to Link Housing, St George Community Housing (SGCH) and Bridge Housing, in partnership with the Women’s Housing Company (WHC). This is in addition to the 1,500 existing social housing tenancies currently managed by Link Housing and a small number of tenancies managed by the Women’s Housing Company in Northern Sydney. The transfer details of the three Northern Sydney package areas are outlined below:

Community housing Local government areas Property numbers Transition date provider (rounded) Link Housing Ryde, Hornsby and Ku-ring- 1,900 3 December 2018 gai

SGCH North Sydney, Hunters Hill, 1,400 1 April 2019 Lane Cove and Willoughby

Bridge Housing in Northern Beaches and 1,200 5 August 2019 partnership with the Mosman Women’s Housing Company

Each community housing provider will have the responsibility for delivering the full range of social housing services and products as well as leading and coordinating the social housing service system. Link Housing, SGCH and Bridge Housing in partnership with the Women’s Housing Company, are working collaboratively to lead the coordination of the social housing service system. Collectively we have developed the Social Housing Service System Coordination Plan (the plan). This plan sets out a shared approach to governance and leadership and key actions we will pursue to ensure coordination across the social housing system takes place.

Coordination across the housing and homelessness sectors We understand that the service system can be difficult to navigate for people who are experiencing, or are at risk of homelessness. We also know that the coordination between housing and homelessness sectors needs to be strong if we are to prevent people churning through the housing and homelessness services and avoid those who are experiencing homelessness from becoming entrenched. A key area identified for attention through our consultation with service providers, Government agencies and peak bodies, was the need for greater coordination across homelessness service providers and community housing providers. In March 2019, we convened the Northern Sydney Housing and Homelessness Services Meeting. The Northern Sydney Housing and Homelessness Committee is responsible for driving collaboration, service improvement and improved housing outcomes for people who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness living in social housing. The Committee aims to provide a forum to bring key decision makers together to work on practical strategies that improve service coordination and drive innovation in service delivery between providers of housing and homelessness services. The Committee is chaired by Bridge Housing as the community housing lead and Mission Australia as the specialist homelessness services representative. It comprises representatives from the specialist homelessness sector, specialist temporary accommodation providers, the NSW Department of Family and Community Services and community housing providers.

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The Northern Sydney Housing and Homelessness Committee will drive service coordination and innovation by: • Communicating and sharing information effectively about policy, programs and reforms that impact service delivery • Working together to ensure clarity about roles and responsibilities to drive local collaboration and service provision that delivers better outcomes • Developing effective local structures, tools and initiatives to deliver better outcomes • Resolving strategic issues that are identified by front line staff • Escalating systemic issues to the appropriate structures in the NSW Department of Family and Community Services, where appropriate. To make this meeting productive and genuinely lead to better outcomes, we wanted to develop an action plan to to guide the work of our committee and to drive coordination through our services at the local level. We understand there are a number of local structures already in place that aim to improve service delivery for people experiencing homelessness. These include the following: • Northern Sydney Homelessness Interagency (convened by North Shore Local Area Command) • Hornsby Homelessness Interagency • Northern Sydney Housing and Mental Health Meeting, local Mental Health Interagency Meetings and Housing Support Placement Meetings • Safety Action Plan meetings • Interagencies focused on priority groups including young people, older people and people with disabilities, child and family, employment or issues such as domestic violence. Our aim is not to duplicate these structures. We want to drive effective service responses across the housing and homelessness sectors because we believe there is a significant opportunity for us to reduce duplication, maximise our limited resources and utilise our respective areas of expertise to deliver better outcomes for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness in Northern Sydney. This is a living plan. We will review our action plan annually and where necessary refine our work to flexibly respond to emerging opportunities, local homelessness issues and changes in the service system. Our thanks to the following organisations that have helped develop and deliver the plan: • Bridge Housing • Mission Australia • Burdekin Association • NSW Department of Family and Community • Catholic Care Services • Dignity House • Phoenix House • Homelessness NSW • SGCH • Women’s Housing Company • Taldumande Youth Services Inc • Catholic Care • The Northern Centre • Link Housing • Women’s Community Shelters • Manly Warringah Women’s Resource Centre

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2 Directions and priority actions

This section of the plan is structured around four key priority actions to improve service coordination and delivery to prevent and address homelessness. 1. Improving understanding of and access to housing assistance 2. Coordinating our outreach to rough sleepers 3. Case-coordination to prevent and address homelessness 4. Developing tools and structures to improve our partnership working and service responses

Priority actions Lead CHP/Partners Timing

Action 1 – Improving understanding of and access to housing assistance We want to ensure that staff are aware of the housing assistance options available for people at risk or, or experiencing, homelessness. We want to improve our responses and drive innovation in our service delivery to move away from high cost temporary responses towards stable and secure housing. a. Develop a cross provider fact sheet on the provision of SGCH Year 1 housing assistance for the Northern Sydney region, to ensure that staff and clients are aware of how housing assistance and transfer applications are managed and the housing available b. Develop a schedule and infrastructure to enable Bridge Housing Year 1 homelessness services to outreach to community housing Mission Australia provider offices, including computer and meeting spaces, Catholic Care to support effective case management for people applying for housing assistance c. Streamline and reduce duplication for people seeking WHC Year 2 housing assistance applications through the use of online forms and computer access in all community housing provider offices d. Undertake joint advocacy in relation to the applicability of WHC Year 2 Private Rental Products, particularly Start Safely, across the WCS region to inform FACS planning and resourcing MWWRC e. Review the provision of Temporary Accommodation to WHC Year 3 ensure consistent processes across housing providers and Catholic Care opportunities for innovation that reduce duplication and WCS improve the product outcomes for clients and the service system. Revise guidelines if necessary. Northern Centre Dignity Roles and Responsibilities of partners Specialist Homelessness Services lead the coordination of support for people accessing crisis homelessness services. They assist their clients to prepare their applications for housing assistance, including collating necessary supporting documentation such as proof of identity. Housing providers assist clients to complete housing applications, assess applications, manage the waiting list for social housing and provide housing assistance products, including assisting with tenancy facilitation services to access housing in the private market. In partnership, we can ensure applicants have the right documentation to assist them to complete their applications quickly and process these in a timely manner. By working together, we can ensure that homeless people are aware of the current options available, are provided with realistic timeframes for assistance and are assisted to make housing choices that are realistic. Key stakeholders to implement this action Housing providers, homelessness services, specialist temporary accommodation providers.

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Priority actions Lead CHP/Partners Timing

Action 2 - Coordinated outreach to people sleeping rough and people at risk of homelessness We want to coordinate our efforts to engage and connect people sleeping rough with support services and housing assistance to break the cycle of homelessness. We want to ensure that staff are trained in best practice outreach approaches to ensure that they are safe and providing the most effective service response. We want to ensure that we are utilising our limited resources effectively to provide outreach services across the Northern Sydney region. a. Develop an assertive outreach model for use across the SGCH Year 1 Northern Sydney region - Northern Beaches, Lower North Mission Australia Shore/North Sydney and Ryde/Hornsby Catholic Care FACS Taldamunde b. Develop a protocol for ad-hoc outreach to hot spot areas SGCH Year 1 outlining key contacts and lead services in each CHP Mission Australia package area Catholic Care FACS

c. Draw on the Homelessness NSW assertive outreach SGCH Year 1 guidelines to ensure staff undertaking outreach are Mission Australia trained in best practice service delivery Catholic Care d. Develop a template to collect data on our outreach SGCH Year 1 engagement to ensure that we understand the numbers of Mission Australia people, provide case coordination and rapid housing Catholic Care responses where necessary e. Develop specific responses for young people in SGCH Year 1 partnership with key local stakeholders Mission Australia Taldamunde Roles and Responsibilities of partners Specialist Homelessness Services lead the outreach response to rough sleeping in Northern Sydney. Housing providers work in partnership to ensure that homeless people have access to appropriate housing assistance products and services in a timely manner. All partners work together to ensure that planned outreach locations contain representation from appropriate services.

Key stakeholders to implement this action Housing providers, homelessness services, specialist temporary accommodation providers, Northern Sydney Homelessness Interagency, Hornsby Homelessness Interagency, local Police, local Councils, health and mental health services, schools.

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Priority actions Lead CHP/Partners Timing Action 3 – Case coordination to prevent and address homelessness We understand that when our staff work together collaboratively we can assist people experiencing homelessness to navigate the social housing service system effectively. Some homeless people or those at-risk of homelessness require a higher level of coordination across multiple service providers. We will explore opportunities to improve our case coordination approach for these clients, including opportunities to build on existing structures. a. Develop a model for case coordination for homeless people SGCH Year 1 identified through street outreach based on the North Taldamunde Sydney/lower North shore pilot Mission Australia FACS b. Implement a Housing First approach to long term rough All CHPs Year 1 sleepers identified through outreach and case coordination c. Undertake a mapping and meet with the Chairs of current Link Year 1 structures for case-coordination in the region MWWRS Catholic Care Mission Australia d. Research best practice approaches to case-coordination for Link Year 2 people experiencing homelessness or at risk of WCS homelessness in Australia and internationally to implement across the region and recommend a model for implementation across Northern Sydney that is broader than rough sleepers e. Develop and implement a best practice case coordination All members Year 2 model at the local level Roles and Responsibilities of partners Specialist Homelessness Services and Specialist Temporary Accommodation Providers lead the response to people experiencing homelessness in Northern Sydney accessing crisis and transitional accommodation. Specialist Homelessness Service Providers also provide post crisis outreach support to those recently housed and outreach support services to social housing tenancies at risk. Housing providers lead in the provision of housing assistance products and services across the housing continuum from temporary accommodation to long term social, affordable and private market housing. Housing providers are responsible for ensuring social housing tenants at risk of homelessness are referred to appropriate support services that can assist them to sustain their tenancies. All partners work together to ensure that those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to gain appropriate support services that meet individual needs.

Key stakeholders to implement this action Housing providers, homelessness services, specialist temporary accommodation providers, Northern Sydney Homelessness Interagency, Hornsby Homelessness Interagency, NSW Health (mental health), NSW Police, NSW Department of Family and Community Services.

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Priority actions Lead CHP/ Partners Timing

Action 4 – Tools and processes to support partnership working and advocacy Significant changes are underway in the delivery of social housing services in the Northern Sydney region. These provide new opportunities for collaboration and advocacy to improve services for people experiencing homelessness and to prevent homelessness. We will develop tools and processes that drive local collaboration, and assist staff to resolve issues at the local level. We will draw on data to inform our practice and advocate for service provision in the region. a. Housing providers to develop an org chart for escalating Bridge Year 1 issues within organisations to appropriate staff

b. Develop a joint mailing list for affordable housing Link Year 1 vacancies in the region to increase housing options for key workers and low income households

c. Commit to joint training and induction opportunities to Bridge Year 2 support the implementation of this plan by front line staff All members across homelessness and housing providers, including in- services, trauma-informed practice, outreach service provision, case coordination and working with CALD and Aboriginal communities d. Undertake a project to investigate living skills programs Link Year 2 e.g. Rent It Keep It, Aboriginal Rent It Keep It and Youth Phoenix House Living Skills programs being developed by FACS, to determine how these could be implemented by housing and homelessness providers across the region e. Investigate the feasibility of undertaking an annual count of Bridge Year 3 street homelessness that is relevant for the Northern Sydney FACS region or other data collection sources to inform our work

Roles and Responsibilities of partners Specialist Homelessness Services and Specialist Temporary Accommodation Providers have in-depth knowledge about local homelessness trends and effective service responses for people experiencing homelessness that can inform local responses. Housing providers have detailed knowledge about the social housing system, tenancy law and supporting vulnerable tenancies. Together, we can put structures in place that assist greater knowledge sharing across our sectors and the collection of data and evidence to inform our work at the local level and our advocacy.

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3 Monitoring and review

This is a three-year rolling plan. We will review the actions identified in this plan annually and every three years we will conduct a full-scale review to ensure it is fit for purpose. The Northern Sydney Housing Executive Group will monitor implementation of the plan at its quarterly meetings and, where necessary, will escalate strategic issues for resolution via the three community housing provider CEOs in their regular governance meeting with the NSW Department of Family and Community Services.

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