Executive director of Business Sydney, Paul Nicolaou, has unveiled the organisation’s five-point plan to get homeless people off the streets and into a warm bed, The Daily Telegraph reports.
According to Mission Australia, there are over 116,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in Australia. In the Sydney CBD alone, there are more than 230 rough sleepers and over 70,000 people using homelessness services in NSW.
Mr Nicolaou’s five-point plan hopes to alleviate some of this pressure by:
(1) Creating a homelessness commissioner,
(2) Identifying existing state government or City of Sydney under-utilised assets that can be converted into temporary accommodation,
(3) Offering incentives to landlords to provide affordable accommodation for single parents with children,
(4) Allocating a floor of the Domain Car Park to temporary accommodation for those in need with mattresses, toilets and security, and
(5) Bringing a large number of community, business and political leaders together.
“Nobody chooses to be homeless but it could happen to anyone,” Mr Nicolaou said in a letter detailing his plan to NSW Communities Minister, Natasha Maclaren-Jones, this week.
The plan has already received support from the new Homelessness NSW chief executive, Trina Jones, who has backed the homelessness commissioner idea.
READ MORE: Greek Australian CEOs sleep rough and raise funds to combat homelessness.
Source: The Daily Telegraph.
