New State Government website makes it easy to help homeless in Adelaide

A new State Government website will make it easier for the community to notify homelessness services where in inner city Adelaide they have seen people sleeping rough so help can get to the homeless more quickly.

Launched today during Homelessness Week, the website enables the community to log on and pinpoint exactly where they have seen a homeless person in the city area, including the CBD, parklands and North Adelaide to allow Street to Home, an inner city homeless service, to proactively offer their support.

The website was developed by the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the SA Housing Authority as part of the Adelaide Zero Project.

“Many South Australians have seen people sleeping rough in the city and have wondered what they can do to help and thanks to this website, now they can,” Minister for Human Services Michelle Lensink said.

“The website makes it easy for members of the community to alert Street to Home where people sleeping rough are located, and as a result, where outreach services are directed.

“The community can now alert Street to Home to people who might not otherwise be found – and helped.

“Reducing homeless in South Australia is a key focus of the Liberal Government and this is why, in our first 100 days, we committed to establishing a new housing authority, which commenced operation from July 1.”

The website has already been successfully trialled in Adelaide.

During a trial phase between November 2017 and July this year, the website assisted more than 20 people who were not previously known to Street to Home.

Notifying the service about someone sleeping rough in Adelaide is as simple as logging onto the Street Connect website www.streetconnect.sa.gov.au and dropping a pin onto a map.

The service’s outreach workers refer to the map to see where someone sleeping rough has been located.

A person is defined as “sleeping rough” if they are sleeping in public areas, in cars or squats because they don’t have safe or secure accommodation.

Sleeping rough is the most obvious form of homelessness and often leads to ill health and leaves people vulnerable to becoming victims of crime.