Understanding Homelessness
Over the past few weeks, a small working group of parishioners, including our social work student Zahidul, have been meeting to develop an appropriate response to the growing number of people sleeping rough on or near Church grounds. Through research and connectivity with local homelessness services, we hope to develop a set of policies of procedures that are compassionate and practical and ensure the welfare and safety of all our church visitors, families and children attending Riverwalk, and the wider community. As you, our church family, are our number one priority, we thought it important to canvass your views your views on how we can best help those who are struggling and seeking assistance, support or shelter. Which is why we are also keen on letting you in a bit on the journey we have been on.
Early on, we visited the Cathedral and spoke with Ann. Ann is an incredible lady who served as a GP to those experiencing all sorts of hardships and has a real heart for those who are homeless. She lives on-site and has done an amazing job helping people sleeping rough in Brisbane find a place to be, including around 15 rough sleepers on the cathedral grounds itself. Something she said that really stuck with us is that this takes a lot of intentional work. We’ve taken that on board, and seeing how they operate really brought it home for us.
We also visited St John’s Crisis Centre and met with Diane Kozik. She gave us some really interesting ideas, telling us about the meal they offer alongside a service where people can get something to eat and connect with other supports like Centrelink.
Di Reilly, one of our parishioners on the team, went with Zah to the Homelessness Conference. They got a really good overview of all the different services available, but one thing stood out: there’s really no emergency accommodation left on the Gold Coast. Everything is full because of how big the crisis is here.
The Queensland Police Volunteers and Diane Kozik have surveyed our site to help us understand how to secure our grounds. We’ve met with other great places too, like the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre, who do so much for those who are homeless in our community, along with many other agencies. It’s been an eye-opening journey.
One thing that has stood out is how much people want to help (we just met with Robina Town Centre and had a resounding “let us know how we can help you” message). However, we’ve also heard about how tricky it is and how intentional we need to be. As we continue to develop and roll out our policy about keeping everyone safe on site, we are also looking to the future for possible options to provide support to those in need in our community.
You may have already seen and completed the short survey included in last week's and this week's newsletter or had a conversation with Josh or Di last Sunday, but if you have not yet done so, please complete the survey this weekend, as we will be closing it off. We have had an enormously positive result so far and thank the many people who have indicated their willingness to join the working group and provide more assistance to those in need, we will be in touch! Keep reading the newsletter for more updates in the coming weeks!