Wollongong Emergency Family Housing Inc (WEFH) is a registered not-for-profit charity with Deductible Gift Recipient Status and Registered Community Housing Provider - Tier 3.
WEFH supports families and individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to either sustain their existing accommodation or attain and keep new tenancies through a combination of early intervention, case management, referral, advocacy and information.
We continue to use a collaborative, client-centred approach to case management and support. Clients often have complex and diverse needs and the service ensures that the process remains flexible in order to meet the individual requirements of each family or individual. WEFH identifies the importance of client ‘self-determination’ and encourages clients to identify their own needs and make informed decisions about services that can best assist them in achieving their goals.
• Transitional Housing Support - Case management, tenancy, education and living skills
• Homeless Hub Crisis Response - Drop in Support, breakfast and food support, crisis management, face-to-face support, referral and advocacy, telephone support.
• Glider Accommodation Pre/Post Crisis Support – Intensive case management, early intervention, targeted support, research project, proactive prevention to homelessness.
• Outreach Service Delivery (Mobile Truck) – Community engagement, collaborative response, assess gaps in service engagement.
Transitional Housing Support provides the provision of transitional accommodation (depending on vacancies) to individuals and families in crisis. The accommodation period is for up-to 12 months, and during this time tenants are required to engage in case management and work on finding sustainable long-term accommodation.
We deliver a range of services to assist those tenancies including referral services, case management, food support, clothing and Manchester support, education programs, advocacy and material resources.
Our goal is to assist individuals and families achieve a level of independence, which enables them to re-engage with their local community and live independently.
Wollongong Homeless Hub (WHH), is a drop in specialist homelessness service that provides support, information, breakfast and food support, referral and advocacy to homeless people or those at risk of homelessness.
WHH helps and supports many different client groups including people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Indigenous, refugees, new settlement, youth and those who have considerable barriers to obtaining private housing such as women and children fleeing domestic violence, single parent families, those recovering from drug or alcohol addiction, those living with mental health.
The Wollongong Homeless Hub provides a unique service for their clients, which includes:
• Face-to-face and telephone support so people in crisis can get seamless, integrated assistance and access to the most appropriate service to meet their needs.
• We provide access to funded homelessness, health, legal, housing, financial, advocacy and support services in Wollongong, to give a true service of integration and holistic outcomes for people at risk.
• Referrals to appropriate services to help prevent client fatigue and having to repeatedly tell their story.
• Clients can access multiple agencies from a single point including Centrelink, Illawarra Legal Centre, Murra Mia, Women’s Health and other services at various times at the Hub.
• Our service provides a purpose built shower and laundry for homeless people of all ages.
• We provide a hot breakfast Monday to Friday for rough sleepers and people in temporary accommodation.
• Assistance with searching for private rentals, including access to computers, photocopier, telephones, fax and email free of charge.
• Free clothing and manchester market days through the year.
• Culturally specific workers will be available at regular times.
• Referral and advocacy.
Our Shower and Laundry program is for homeless people of all ages in the Illawarra. The shower and laundry was built due to the need for having a resource so that people who have hit hard times are able to wash and clean the little clothes they have. It gives people back their dignity.
Our Breakfast Program operates Monday to Friday 9am – 10am. This program targets those who are sleeping rough or those in temporary housing. This program gives staff an opportunity to interact and engage with people who would not generally approach support services. We then link these clients with other support networks to address areas such as mental health, general health, and housing needs, enable access to showers and address hygiene issues, access to washing facilities and other basic needs. The program runs through the kindness and generosity of our volunteers and people in the Illawarra region donating bread, milk and no perishable food.
Our targeted early intervention Glider Accommodation Project is focusing on tenancies at risk in the real estate industry and community service sector. Our goal is to support new and existing tenants of both sectors and provide intervention to assist tenants in hardship before things exculpate to tenancy loss, proactively preventing them from becoming homeless and in-turn reduce the eviction cost to industry and reduce the number of people seeking temporary/crisis accommodation.
Our trained Community Social Worker, works collaboratively with services to deliver post and pre-crisis assistance. As we provide a client-centred approach to supporting tenancies at risk, we are able to refer tenants onto correct service pathway.
We recognise the diverse needs of both sectors, and work to find a common ground between both. Supporting tenants earlier on reduces stress, time and money in the process for all stakeholders.
Our mobile Outreach Service Delivery (OSD) truck provides a community engagement tool for our service and other organisations to meet on site to deliver collaborative client-centred support to individuals and families in need. OSD meets at locations that have been identified as high demand, this could be due to lack of transport to Wollongong CBD to access service supports or locations where there is a high number of homeless/ people sleeping rough. Whilst on site OSD makes available information, support assistance, clothes, toiletries, Manchester and food.
Currently we are funded to provide support services to 639 clients per year. Last year we saw 2100.
WEFH is not about ticking boxes, it’s about providing practical support to help prevent the cycle and assist people from ‘homelessness to home’.
For further information regarding our programs and for regular updates visit our website www.wefh.org.au and page www.facebook.com/wollongonghomelesshub or www.facebook.com/wollongongemergencyfamilyhousing
