LG Award Winner Series

Northern Beaches Council

Community Development and Strategic Planning Approaches to Housing and Homelessness

Northern Beaches Council has been working closely with the community to address housing and homelessness issues on the Northern Beaches. Critical to the success of this initiative has been developing robust partnerships with key agencies including homelessness outreach services Community Northern Beaches and Mission Australia, community housing providers Bridge Housing, Women’s Housing Company and Link Wentworth Housing, key services including domestic violence and youth homelessness, Northern Beaches Police, and several state and federal Ministers and representatives.

Together they have sought to:

• Improve service coordination for people who are homeless
• Strengthen advocacy of the Housing First model, particularly towards increasing the provision of social and affordable housing
• Play our part in achieving the NSW Government’s objective to “Reduce street homelessness across NSW by 50% by 2025.”

To achieve this, council coordinated a Housing and Homelessness Forum, drafted a subsequent Discussion Paper, established a local Housing and Homelessness Interagency and Case Coordination Group and has conducted two annual Homelessness Street Counts. More recently they drafted their Housing Strategy which has set a target to provide 1,880 new social and affordable housing dwellings by 2036 and to continue to advocate for other levels of government to address the current shortfall of more than 8,000 social and affordable housing dwellings. This is the first time Council has set bold targets to address this challenge.

Webinar Wednesday Is Free For Members

Presenters

Will Wrathall A/Manager Community Development Northern Beaches Council Will leads a team of community development specialists at Northern Beaches Council that partner with key services and community members to address social issues on the Northern Beaches. Over the last few years, a significant amount of their work concerns establishing the multi-award winning Northern Beaches Suicide Response and improving service coordination and strategic advocacy for housing and homelessness issues. Will’s passion for community development commenced on a rubbish tip in the remote islands of north east Indonesia where he witnessed the slow seeping sense of minds itching over the possibilities of education. As a trained teacher and counsellor, he considers building social and relational capacity as the most effective way to prepare for and address the many challenges of the new millennium.

Natalia Hepp Acting Team Leader, Community Development Northern Beaches Council Natalia joined the Community Development team at Northern Beaches Council earlier this year, specialising in the mental health and housing & homelessness portfolio. She is passionate about a human rights approach to community development and has previously worked with communities and international development organisations in the Pacific, Jordan and Ghana to strengthen health system outcomes. Trained in psychology and public health, the proudest moment in her career has been to establish a culturally responsive, mentoring program for psychiatrists in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Australia, where opportunities for reflection and peer support have contributed to significant cross-cultural learnings.