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Complex Needs Coordination Project

Background

After three years of implementation, the Complex Needs Coordination Project (the Project) was completed on 4 November 2010. The Project was a key initiative of the City of Sydney’s Homelessness Strategy 2007-12.

The project aimed to reduce the number of people who are chronically homeless throughout Inner Sydney, by providing intensive assistance to services trying to house a prioritised group of chronically homeless people who have complex needs.

The Project was initially developed and implementation commenced in September 2007 by the City of Sydney and the then NSW Department of Community Services in partnership with Housing NSW and other stakeholders.  Housing NSW provided access to 30 tenancies toward housing for vulnerable people through the Project. 

Outcomes

As of October 2010, the Project has provided long term housing and sustainable support to 36 people who had been homeless for periods of between one and 20 years and who had two or more complex issues such as mental health, substance abuse, chronic disease, disability, a history of trauma and abuse and so on.

An Evaluation of the Project was conducted by the Social Policy Research Centre, (University of NSW) that identified key outcomes:

  • The project was one of the first to adopt the international ‘Housing First’ model for implementation in NSW. ‘Housing First’ operates within the principle that housing should be provided first and without pre-requisites relating to compliance with mental health or substance abuse treatment and that support for these issues should follow the provision of a stable place to live
  • The Project improved the level of collaboration and communication between services in the inner-city particularly the coordination of multiple support agencies around the needs of vulnerable individuals
  • The Project increased sector knowledge and awareness of the service pathways for people with complex needs
  • The Project contributed significantly to the identification of systemic issues and barriers that were contributing towards entrenching people in homelessness and was successful overall in overcoming those barriers for Project participants
  • Services that have worked with the Project have reported that the assistance and advice provided to them through the Project has led to enduring outcomes for their clients where all other interventions have failed.

Evaluation

A full copy of the final Evaluation Report is available for download.

The City has used the Project’s lessons to inform the development of the model for the new assertive outreach team Way2Home (funded by the City and Housing NSW).

Download

For referral information

Liz Giles
Manager, Homelessness Unit
City of Sydney
Tel: 02 9246 7676
Email: egiles@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

 

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Last Updated: Tuesday 29 March, 2011

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