I am really annoyed at Labor’s
Carryn Sullivan’s misleading articles in the papers that say that Family Haven
have received a $360 703 funding boost when in fact they received no boost and
simply had their operating budget reannounced.
Her statement ‘this shows the
Queensland Government is doing everything it can to support people at risk of
becoming homeless’ couldn’t be further from the truth. If the Labor Member was
serious about dealing with the homeless issue in her electorate maybe she would
have called or dropped into Family Haven and discussed the problem with them
sometime over the last few years.
Maybe she could of asked them just
how they provide crisis accommodation and assistance to 788 adults and 300
children on just $15 000 a year?
If she had of bothered to speak to
someone at Family Haven she would know that the funding boost she talks about is
a re-announcement of the operating budget that pays the rent, staff,
photocopiers, phones etc and that the Haven haven’t received any boost despite
the number of homeless increasing dramatically.
If the Labor Member was familiar
with what goes on in her electorate she would know that we have families
sleeping in tents on the river bank, people living on the streets, under bridges
and at the train station yet we have housing commission properties sitting
vacant. It is ridiculous that we have Government housing sitting vacant and
people desperately needing a place to sleep but the red tape put in place by
this Government means that they have to ring a service provider up on the
Sunshine Coast and wait for them to come down and make an assessment before
these people can be housed … during working hours of course.
The work Family Haven do is
exceptional and without them there would be no emergency housing in the
Caboolture area. This group has been dealing with the ever increasing problem
of homelessness in our area for 25 years and have been told by the Labor
Government that this is the last year of their funding. Does that sound like a
Government that, as they say, ‘is doing
everything it can to support people at risk of becoming
homeless’?
Keep up the great work Family
Haven and your volunteers, hopefully soon you will have a local member and
government that support you.
Lisa
France
Lisa
France
LNP
Candidate for Pumicestone
