MALLEE Accommodation and Support Program (MASP) will highlight the organisation’s approach to working with people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping at next month’s biannual Homelessness NSW Conference in Wollongong.
MASP Director of Client Services Greg Robinson, Director of Practice Amy Cupper and Manager of Homelessness Support Trevor Gibbs will give a presentation on the organisation’s Assertive Outreach Program at the conference.
“MASP’s Assertive Outreach Program in NSW was born out of flood recovery funding from the Department of Communities and Justice in October 2023 to move away from the traditional office-based interaction and meet the community where they are,” Mr Robinson explained.
“Particularly those sleeping rough who were displaced by the floods at the time. Since then, the approach has been overwhelmingly successful in engaging many people who had not previously connected with MASP to support their homeless and housing needs.
“We look forward to the conference and sharing our insights with other services in NSW, particularly those in metro settings whose experiences working in this space will differ greatly from ours. It will also hopefully be a great learning experience for us to take in information on processes that work in other areas that we could potentially align to greater serve our communities.”
The Assertive Outreach Program continues to be run by MASP in NSW and Victoria. In the 2024/25 Financial Year 68 clients were supported via the program, of which 15 were able to secure long term affordable and sustainable housing.
“When MASP started out we thought material aid and emergency accommodation would be the dominant factors in the program – however this has not been the experience,” Mr Robinson said.
“Yes, people do require housing but arguably more importantly what we found is they required advocacy to access services and supports. Many had no form of ID, no health checks, they couldn’t access services such as the NDIS because they had no address to be serviced from, they had no family connections. Relationships became a key element to the Assertive Outreach Program’s success – not only with the person but also with the community such as Police, Councils, Park Rangers, retailers’ associations and other community members.”
The Homelessness NSW conference runs from 10-12 March, with this year’s theme ‘A Place to Call Home: Strengthening Services, Sustaining Systems Change’. The conference attracts industry experts and attendees from Australia and overseas who work across frontline service delivery, advocacy, government, academia or alongside the homelessness sector.
