As the homelessness crisis continues to deepen, community awareness, empathy and actions need to increase. We hope a Community Sleepout will be the first step.
The Gazette has worked with a number of passionate community leaders to bring this initiative to life and we felt Homelessness Week this week was the perfect opportunity to announce the event.
A Community Sleepout will be held at Lardner Park on Friday, October 3. We want to bring community members together to raise awareness and start the conversation about homelessness in our community.
Why? Because the housing crisis is real, and here in Baw Baw Shire.
A recent report presented to council showed more than 130 people are currently experiencing homelessness, some 770 households are facing housing stress and 1000 households are on a social housing wait list.
It was the actions of Cr Ben Lucas that brought the report to council. His aim being to link services, start conversations and consider homelessness when developing council advocacy priorities.
For our editorial team, the report was not simply another council story. Cr Lucas inspired us to talk more deeply and discuss how we could give this the exposure it needed.
As journalists, we can present facts and we can write emotional stories of hardship. But to drive home those messages and have real impact we wanted to bring our community together to face the harsh reality; to consider a powerful message; and, most importantly to recognise what we can do to achieve outcomes.
We wanted our series of articles to have an end purpose. We believe the Community Sleepout will achieve that.
Our team has been overwhelmed by the response and enthusiasm of our event partners. After a discussion with Cr Lucas, the idea gained momentum and support beyond what we expected.
We are proud to have the support of our event partners Lardner Park, Mindfull Aus and Frankies Community Kitchen who will provide a soup kitchen for participants on the Friday night.
We also greatly appreciate Warragul Lions Club coming on board to provide breakfast and Alimentos Catering to provide much needed coffee Saturday morning.
The sleepout program will include guest speakers on Friday night and a panel discussion Saturday morning before everyone leaves. Quantum Support Services, Baw Baw Food Relief and Longwarry Lions Food Relief also have committed to the event.
The Community Sleepout is about raising awareness of homelessness because it is a much deeper issue than someone sleeping on a park bench.
The face of homelessness also is the women and children who leave a violent relationship, or young people couch surfing at friends' houses because of family relationship breakdown.
And with the cost of living crisis, support services and food relief agencies are telling us there are many families living so close to the line of homelessness.
We live in a wonderful, caring community so it's important we tell these stories, raise awareness, create empathy and hopefully achieve some positive outcomes.
The Gazette will feature a series of articles in the weeks leading up to the Community Sleepout. We hope the articles trigger people to think more deeply about homelessness and support the sleepout.
For registration and event details, see the Community Sleepout advertisement on p15.
- Yvette Brand, Editor
