City homeless hotspot

By Melissa Meehan
DANDENONG is a hotspot for homelessness, according to national research released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
“It is a grim picture of how homelessness has remained a serious issue in Australia,” one of the report’s authors David McKenzie said.
While homelessness no longer shares the connotations of yesteryear, he says it still remains, especially in Greater Dandenong.
“Of the 764 homeless people living in Greater Dandenong, not many are sleeping rough,” he said.
“They are often staying with friends or family, couch surfing, living in boarding houses – now it is more of an invisible homelessness.”
He said the number of homeless people had increased since 2001, and while most areas had a fairly even distribution of homeless people, Dandenong was a stand-out.
In the past, Mr McKenzie says, city centres often had the largest population of homeless.
“But there are probably a couple of reasons that Dandenong’s numbers are so high,” he said.
“It is a regional centre for many in the south-east, and it has a generally disadvantaged community already.”
But Jen Kelly, managing director of WAYSS, a welfare organisation based in Dandenong, says in reality it is much worse.
“The data in the recently released report is from 2006,” Ms Kelly said.
“It is much more serious now – it is grim out there.”
She said that WAYSS was finding it difficult to provide accommodation to suit demand.
“So many people need help, women and children, the elderly, it really is a spread of the community,” she said.
“It’s not just the poor any more either, it’s middle Australia – home owners who can’t afford to pay for food and heating.
“But we will just keep chipping away, trying to make a difference.”