Join Story Circle authors and facilitators in celebrating the launch of a book of suicide recovery stories, on Wednesday 28 November, 2-4pm at the Lismore Art Gallery. A FREE hard copy is available for the first 80 organisations and mental health professionals who attend.
Would you like to understand more about suicide? Or do you work with people who are suicidal?
Don’t let suicide kill you: 9 stories of survival and recovery shares the stories of nine people who have come back from the brink of suicide. These stories were written during a Story Circle ─ an eight-week writing course in Lismore, facilitated by two authors and two mental health professionals.
Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre will be running Child Protection Early Referral to Legal Advice sessions during the parenting festival in Grafton (28 November) and Yamba (26 November).
The sessions focus on the stages of the child protection intervention process and why it is important at each stage for families to seek legal advice and access to family and domestic violence services.
The facilitators include the Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre Early Intervention Child Protection/Family law solicitor, the child protection solicitor from the Aboriginal Legal Service and the Clarence River Domestic and Family Violence Specialist Service and hopefully Clarence Valley WDVCAS.
The sessions will also focus on providing the tools to service providers to assist clients to overcome the barriers to seeking legal assistance.
North Coast Primary Health Network is calling for local artworks to be featured on the cover and layout of North Coast Primary Health Network’s Reconciliation Action Plan. Entries close 5pm, 11 January 2019.
Entries are invited from all Aboriginal Nations between Tweed and Port Macquarie including; Bundjalung, Arakwal, Gumbaynggirr, Yaegl, Githabul, Birpai and Dunghutti and should explore what reconciliation and the health of our local community means to you, your family and community.
Northern Rivers community members, professionals and organisations have banded together to place the region’s housing crisis front-and-centre for politicians ahead of the NSW election in March, warning that it is now a “make or break” issue for voters. The momentum carries on from October’s Northern Rivers Housing Forum, attended by 120 people at Lennox Head.
Social Futures CEO Tony Davies said further delay was no longer an option for governments – with urgent increases in social and affordable housing options for the Northern Rivers needed.
“A significant proportion of our community is in severe housing stress — it’s no longer a problem affecting a small minority. People from all walks of life are struggling to cope with day-to-day living costs and are constantly walking on the edge of homelessness,” Mr Davies said.
“The election is just four months away and I encourage people to take this issue directly to their local members and candidates — write to them or make an appointment and let them know this is the issue that will influence your vote in March.”
The Northern Rivers Housing Forum heard the lack of affordable housing and disparity between rental costs and wages was a major contributor to the Northern Rivers having nearly 20% of the state’s rough sleepers.
The Northern Rivers Housing Forum is calling for direct action against its six key platforms What’s it going to take? Urgent housing actions for the Northern Rivers (Appendix 1).
Hope Haven Refuge Case Manager Susan Byrne said the accommodation crisis was impacting women and children fleeing domestic and family violence.
“In protecting themselves and their children from the perpetrator, they become homeless,” Ms Byrne said.
“Crisis accommodation is provided for up to six weeks, but the lack of safe long-term housing increases the likelihood of women returning to their abuser out of desperation for shelter,” she said.
Find out more about the Northern Rivers Housing Forum here: socialfutures.org.au/whats-it-going-to-take
Post expires at 10:43am on Wednesday December 19th, 2018
Following the 2018 Northern Rivers Housing Forum in Lennox Head last month, we’re asking you to take action to get affordable housing and responding to homelessess firmly on the 2019 NSW election agenda for all candidates.
Five ways you can help
Familiarise yourself with the URGENT actions that were agreed at the recent Forum and think about how they relate to you professionally and personally. They are shown below and you can
to share.
Write to your local NSW MP and the other candidates who are challenging them. Ask about their housing policies. Remind them there’s a housing crisis in the Northern Rivers. Ask them to put housing on their campaign platform. Choose your MP or candidates from the panel below to get started. Customise your letter. Demand a response!
Ask the CEO of your organisation to write a letter to the editor or issue a press release about how the current housing crisis impacts your business or organisation; and that you support the urgent actions that are needed.
Send us a story or case study we can use to demonstrate housing needs and opportunities in our region when talking to politicians.
Follow our Facebook Page and share our housing actions posts with your friends and stakeholders.
Contact us
For more information about the campaign email Ian O’Reilly or call us on 0438 005 798
Develop a minimum of 100 additional social housing properties per year for 10 years. We need many more at 250+ per year to clear the existing waitlist, and more again to meet the need for affordable housing. As of June 2018, there were 3,026 people on the social housing waiting list in our region. (Source: North Coast Community Housing 2018)
Quarantine part of the Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) for regional areas. We need to develop affordable and social housing in areas of critical need including the Northern Rivers.
To date, the Northern Rivers has not seen any benefits from SAHF.
Increase transitional accommodation for clients of specialist homelessness services by 150 properties. This is essential to relieve pressure on the limited crisis services in the Northern Rivers and to support people in the transition to longer-term housing.
As one of the largest providers of Specialist Homelessness Services in the Northern Rivers working with other agencies, Social Futures has access to fewer than 50 houses, to meet the needs of more than 2,000 individuals who request housing support each year.
Allocate additional homelessness support funding for Northern Rivers. This should include proper funding of 24/7 youth and adult crisis services and rough sleeper outreach programs.
The last two census studies have shown the Northern Rivers has above average levels of homelessness including 19 per cent of the state’s rough sleepers, but we do not receive a proportionate share ofhomelessness funding. There are no properly funded youth or adult crisis accommodation servicesnorth of Coffs Harbour.
Redevelop Housing NSW properties to deliver better quality and higher densities in appropriate locations. Ensure there is no net loss of social and community housing land in high-cost markets like Byron Bay. Transfer poorly-used housing assets to community housing providers to accommodate more people in well-designed mixed tenure communities.
Extend existing planning instruments that support affordable housing development to Northern NSW Local Government Areas. Existing State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) in some LGAs require a percentage of stock in new developments to be developed as affordable housing. These provisions should be applied in Northern Rivers given the severity of our housing market failure.
Social Futures is the main contact point for the Northern Rivers Housing Forum, a group of organisations and concerned individuals that identifies and highlights housing issues, needs and challenges and works towards innovative and sustainable approaches to address them.
Contact
To contact the Northern Rivers Housing Forum or to subscribe to receive important updates and emails about Northern Rivers housing issues please email us at: [email protected]
You might also be interested our homelessness services:
Parliamentary Secretary (Minister) for Renewable Energy & Northern NSW
Parliament House Macquarie Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 [email protected] (02) 9230 3793
Mr Franklin attended the Northern Rivers Housing Forum in 2018 and supported the actions proposed. He is contesting the seat of BALLINA for the Legislative Assembly (Lower House) in the next election.
c/o NSW Labor Party 377 Sussex Street Sydney NSW 2000 [email protected]
Craig Elliot has been contacted by Social Futures to ascertain his position on the URGENT actions required to address the housing crisis in the Northern Rivers.
c/o New South Wales Labor 377 Sussex Street Sydney NSW 2000 [email protected]
Former Federal Member for Page Janelle Saffin has told Social Futures she supports the URGENT actions required to address the housing crisis in the Northern Rivers.
Ms Saffin is also happy to be the contact for the Country Labor candidate for CLARENCE.
