Shelter to Close it doors as letter requesting more rentals goes out.

Salt Care - follow link to see their services 

I received the sad news that our local homeless shelter needs to close it's doors on Sunday 16 October. After 5 years of looking after over 800 families' men and women, which resulted in 16,000 beds. Salt Ministeries have worked tirelessly over the 5 years and have asked State and Federal Government to give some financial support to keep the doors open. Their calls have fallen on deaf ears and this vital service is no longer. 

Fast forward almost one month and our amazing community has worked tirelessly to support Salt Care. The local Ex Servo's (servicemen and women) donated $40,000 and the Councilor's came together to unanimously support $20,000 from the Mayoral Relief Fund. This allowed the shelter to reopen for a few months but doesn't go near the $260,000 that's needed annually - its unsustainable funding that will run out in March next year.

 My Greens colleagues in the NSW State Parliament helped apply some pressure to Minister Natasha Maclaren-Jones - Thanks Jenny Leong and Cate Faerhmann for your assistance. The Minister reached out to Salt Care and she asked for a fortnight to try and find some funding. It's almost three hours' drive from Nowra to Macquarie Street and instead of an online meeting the Minister insisted that Salt Care travel to see her - almost 6 hours of travel for not much purpose shows very little respect for the valuable time of Salts's volunteers.

A fortnight passed and the second meeting came around - going into the meeting feeling hopeful that two weeks had maybe produced results. There was no sign of the minister and not even the same bureaucrats in the meeting. 

Salt Care where disappointed but not really surprised, as this corrupt NSW Liberal Government continue to undervalue caring for people. What's diabolical about this situation is that the government is winding down to the Xmas period and an election, could have found some funds to keep this vital service open and they could have found the funds from monies that haven't been spent yet or from the budget allowance for people who qualify for emergency nights.

The emergency monies are sometimes held back IF the provider doesn't think there is a viable housing option ahead - that ludicrous position means that the Shelter cannot get a person into their care and take the time needed to work with them to understand what wrap around supports they need.

This will be a big issue for the South Coast in the coming State Election .