Nova for Women and Children's service reduction caused by housing shortage

The Herald reported this week that the reduced service delivery, which has never happened before and will continue until at least December 20, means the service is only taking on urgent requests.

Lee Liewes said the service was seeing an increase in requests from people in desperate need of accommodation, but there wasn't enough housing to fill that demand.

"We're seeing a large number of people who have never experienced anything like this," she said.

"The best thing that we can do is give them tenancy facilitation packs, which include all the information that you need to apply for housing; we get housing lists, which indicates the areas that most affordable houses are available, and we'll provide that information access to our facilities to contact real estates, and we can advocate with real estates on their behalf. But the housing just isn't there."

The Herald has previously reported that Nova dealt with fifty per cent more clients than it was contracted for in the last financial year.

Ms Liewes said staff were "increasingly exhausted".

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"They're suffering such ethical and emotional fatigue and pain because of not being able to support all of the people who come to our service, but it's just not realistic," she said.

However they're looking at the positive in still being able to offer a service and finding an alternative to stop new referrals overwhelming them.

Ms Liewes said the situation would be reviewed regularly, but that the answer lies in long term solutions.

"We need more social housing, we need more affordable housing," she said. "This isn't just impacting women and children. We need Centrelink benefits to to be at the level that people can afford to have a rental.

"We're asking people to support the Everybody's Home and Raise the Rate campaigns, because that's something we can all do right now."

The NSW government recently announced that there would be 200 more houses built for women experiencing domestic and family violence, but Charlestown MP Jodie Harrison, who is the shadow Minister for Women and shadow Minister for Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, said that was "a tiny drop in the ocean of what's needed".

"The waiting list for NOVA for Women and Children's service makes this really clear," she said.

Ms Harrison said the NSW Council of Social Service has been calling for 5000 new social housing dwellings to be built each year for the next 10 years.

"That is what is needed to deal with the current demand," she said.

"The housing crisis isn't just affecting young people not being able to buy a home - it's affecting women over the age of 55, and young mothers with children, who are leaving violent homes with absolutely nothing and cannot find a safe place to live."

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