Homelessness Specialist Support Service – Central Great Southern to be Delivered by Southern Aboriginal Corporation and Anglicare WA

Media Release.

05/06/2025.

Southern Aboriginal Corporation (SAC) has today welcomed the announcement that the WA Government, via the Department of Communities, will fund a partnership between SAC and Anglicare WA to deliver the Homelessness Specialist Support Service – Central Great Southern (HSSS).

HSSS will provide wrap-around case management support for sixteen (16) clients/families at any one time experiencing or at risk of homelessness in the Central Great Southern Region, including the Shires of Katanning, Kojonup, Gnowangerup and Broomehill-Tambellup.

SAC CEO, Asha Bhat, said the ability of the partners to work with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in culturally safe, respectful and client centric ways, and to leverage their long-standing connections with communities, service providers and stakeholders across the Central Great Southern region made them uniquely best placed to deliver HSSS:

SAC has a long-standing relationship with Anglicare WA, having partnered to provide transitional accommodation and case management support to women escaping family and domestic violence, and to deliver new crisis accommodation units in the Great Southern.

We are excited to combine our operational expertise and organisational infrastructure to deliver what it is a critically needed service for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people experiencing and at risk of homelessness in the Central Great Southern.

HSSS will:

·         Work with all persons experiencing or at risk of homelessness and support them to obtain, sustain and/or maintain appropriate accommodation;

·         Utilise the mobility of the service to engage with clients wherever they are at, for example at a refuge, crisis accommodation, local service, or on the streets;

·         Support clients who present with co-occurring needs to navigate complex service networks and have their holistic needs met; and

·         Work with clients for the duration of time that they require, having no fixed end date on engagement.

Ms Bhat highlighted that the service will align with the outcomes of the All Path’s Lead to a Home: Western Australia’s 10-Year Strategy on Homelessness, and will facilitate the ‘no wrong door’ and ‘housing first’ concepts outline in the Strategy.