The WA Alliance to End Homelessness (Alliance) are now members of the Institute of Global Homelessness (IGH) thanks to a five-thousand-dollar donation from the City of Perth and key homelessness services within Perth.
The Institute works in deep partnership with cities globally to end street homelessness including Perth. Their support includes the development of action plans, information sharing, check in calls, video conferencing using best practice examples from across the globe.
Perth have began monthly support calls being facilitated by their Executive Director, Lydia Stazen based a Depaul University in Chicago. Our first topic for discussion has been the development and response to encampments due to our recent experiences in Perth. She provided a framework of responses drawn from examples across the globe and encouraging us to adopt best practice responses. She listened and spoke online for an hour answering our questions.
View the PowerPoint presentation here.
These calls are open to services who provide support to those people experiencing street homelessness. For further information contact us at hello@endhomelessness.com.
The heading "Handling Tent Encampments" reads to me like it should be in the "Not Recommended" category of possible responses. Rather than "Handling" surely the support/response, as per the "Best Practice" in the the PowerPoint presentation, should be "Listen to people of lived experience on why they aren’t interested in emergency shelter; make meaningful changes".