Working with People who are Experiencing Homelessness – The Very Marginalised and Disadvantaged in our Own Community

Cronin M¹*, O’Kelly M¹*

1. St Vincent De Paul, Aged Care and Community Services, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia

The Ozanam Community Centre, based within the City of Melbourne, acts as a magnet for a heterogenous range of people who can be described as ‘socially excluded’. The majority accessing the Centre are homeless and marginalised by their lack of income, employment or networks; existing on the ‘bottom rung’ of our society. The Centre attracts a high volume of service users – up to two hundred per day, many of who have experienced significant trauma; at the hands of their families, and within the criminal system. There is a high incidence of chronic illness, frailty or old age, physical, psychiatric and intellectual disability, and alcohol or substance abuse.

The Centre provides primary support services; health, housing and material aid as one aspect of service delivery. Adjuncts to these basic services are the programs and activities through which the Centre aims to foster a sense of community and provide opportunities for skills development. The focus is on enhancing the quality of community life, while at the same time providing basic services, and of building relationships of trust and engaging homeless and marginalized people.

This presentation will elaborate on our learns from working to build the Ozanam Community Centre into the vibrant and creative environment that it has become; a place were many other services across Melbourne come to access and work with this often very difficult to engage section of our own community. The presentation will include a series of short films made by the people who utilise the Centre.