SleepSafe Celebrates Two Years – Read more here
All Posts By

Courtney Rayner

Sep 07

Community Grants Providing Immediate Impact

By Community Grants, COVID-19
Our network of Emergency Relief (ER) and Material Aid community organisations provide a crucial safety net for people experiencing a crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how critical these organisations are in supporting the health and wellbeing of vulnerable people. To reflect this, our recent Community Grants, made possible through a philanthropic partnership, have focused on providing $80,000 of support for immediate impact. Read More

Sep 01

SleepSafe – A safe night’s sleep for 37,000 vulnerable Australians

By COVID-19, Grant Impact, News, SleepSafe
Our SleepSafe campaign launched in August 2019, so has just turned two. We have been blown away by the support from donors – in particular over the past 12-months – where we have almost tripled (+274%) our impact, raising $410,000.

To date, the program has raised more than half a million dollars, which will help over 37,000 vulnerable Australians who are at risk or experiencing homelessness. Read More

Aug 03

CafeSmart powers local community groups

By CafeSmart, Homelessness in the news, Projects StreetSmart, StreetSmart News
Not even a global pandemic or lockdowns can dampen the community spirit of the coffee community, who are uniting to take action against homelessness through CaféSmart (2 – 8 August).

During Homelessness Week 2021 cafes across all states and territories are becoming homelessness advocates by raising awareness about the devastating crisis facing thousands of Australians without a home, and encouraging customers to dig deep to help provide vital funding. Cafes will also be donating $1 per coffee sold on Friday 6 August. What a huge effort in such a tough year.

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Jul 13

Poverty and Homelessness – The Reality For Too Many Older Women

By Homelessness in the news, Older women, Projects StreetSmart

Housing for the Aged Action Group

For many years, frontline workers in regional and metro homelessness services have been seeing increasing numbers of older women seeking support. The 2016 census confirmed this, showing older women, over the age of 55, were the fasting growing cohort of people experiencing homelessness increasing by 31% from 2011 – 2016. We know this trend has accelerated and worsened since 2016, with many services reporting women approaching them for support for the first time in their lives, unfortunately many are turned away due to a limited capacity to help.

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May 31

150,000 Meals Delivered, Training and Jobs Secured

By COVID-19, SmartMeals, Winter Appeal
Donate to our Winter Appeal here
SmartMeals was launched back in March 2020, responding to food insecurity of vulnerable people, as COVID restrictions hit community meals programs. This week we deliver our 150,000th meal, powered by our generous supporters. Currently we are collaborating with 13 food based social enterprises, in 5 States, to cook 4,000 meals per week, and we want to keep delivering…. Read More

May 19

StreetSmart delivers $40,000 in grants to support Youth Services

By COVID-19, Homelessness in the news, Recovery Fund
At the same time as youth services have seen a significant rise in demand due to COVID-19, many smaller independent organisations have seen a fall in fundraising revenue as their community fundraising came to a halt.  In line with Youth Homelessness Matters Day in April, the team at StreetSmart raised funds from our supporters to provide funding to youth services and assist young people experiencing the fall out from the pandemic. All six youth programs we supported through our Recovery Fund have seen fundraising income fall over the past 12 months. One organisation lost $1 million of critical fundraising revenue, another had seen revenue drop to $0:

“Our community  fundraising income for the 2020 calendar year was zero, missing our target of $85,000 per annum. Our social enterprise income for the 2020 calendar year was also down 50% on our forecasted income.”

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Apr 07

Recovery Fund grants target homeless flood victims

By Homelessness in the news, Recovery Fund
A few weeks ago, two massive storms converged over eastern Australia dumping more than 40cm of rain in just five days across huge areas along the coastline, and in some cases as much as 80cm. Rivers rose rapidly, some by over 10 metres. Tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate, and many people have lost their homes, many have lost everything.

The flooding stretches 600 kilometres from Sydney to the Northern Rivers as Fiona Johnson, a hydrologist from the water research centre at UNSW explained, “It’s just the sheer scale of having it from the border all the way down south of Sydney.” In areas that suffered severe bushfires just 12 months ago, the storms have continued and compounded the devastation.

Read More

Mar 26

SmartMeals Evolves to Provide Meals. Training. Jobs.

By COVID-19, SmartMeals, StreetSmart News
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Our original SmartMeals program was established in March 2020 as an emergency response to COVID-19, providing nutritious meals for people impacted by the COVID-19 economic and health crisis, while also keeping vulnerable hospitality workers in jobs. SmartMeals used the under-utilised capacity of local cafes, restaurants and food based social enterprises, devastated by the pandemic, to provide 111,000 ready-made meals for their local overstretched homeless and community groups. Many meals went to feed people, moved rapidly off the streets, accommodated in hotels and motels.

Introducing the evolution of SmartMeals – Meals. Training. Jobs.

All meals will now be made by social enterprises, meaning vital job training, readiness and pathways programs for vulnerable people in a difficult jobs market. Read More