It’s Homelessness Week. This year’s theme is homelessness action now.
Written by Ellen Jacobsen, Head of Impact at HoMie
It’s Homelessness Week. This year’s theme is homelessness action now.
We sincerely hope that this years campaign rallies the attention, urgency, and commitment that the homelessness crisis deserves. Through events, media engagement, and advocacy, the campaign aims to build community support and drive government action - because the sector already knows what works. The solutions are there, homelessness is solvable, but action is required.
Homelessness needs action now. It needed action yesterday. And it still needs action after the week is over.
Here at HoMie, it’s homelessness week every week. If you’re a part of our community, if you’ve bought a tee or hoodie, or had a conversation in one of our stores, you know as well as we do that the work never stops.
The number of young people accessing (and being turned away from) homelessness support services has been ever increasing over the years, and that the housing crisis is compounding broken systems to make it harder and harder to break the cycle of homelessness.
We'll keep talking about the crisis, because we have to, but we’re also taking action every day. In the spirit of "the sector knows what works," here's some of what's been working in our patch.
The young people
They work so hard. They show up. They navigate complex challenges. They put themselves out there. They share their strengths and keep moving forward. We'll never stop saying it: the hardest-working people in the youth homelessness movement are the young people themselves.
The new HoMie Emporium store
After just one year, it will have created 42 paid jobs for young people through our Retail Ready program. Every customer who walks through the door creates another chance for a young person to build confidence, practice workplace skills, and learn and earn in an environment where they're genuinely supported by staff and customers. If you’ve visited - we appreciate you.
Genuine partnerships with the for profit sector
The HoMie Pathway Alliance is our accredited employment and education traineeship where young people study a Cert III in Business with us in a supported classroom, and work part time on the shop floor to gain paid retail experience and training. We’ve got some incredible businesses on board providing the training placements - Sportsgirl, Nike, Bunnings and AMX. These Retail heavyweights are creating real, meaningful, opportunities for young people that we just can’t do on our own. If you know your workplace can make a difference, we’d love to talk.
The HoMie community knows homelessness matters beyond just one week, but we hope you'll join us in taking action from 3rd–9th August. Wear your HoMie hoodie and start a conversation. Support a youth homelessness organisation. Get along to a Homelessness Week event. Or simply pop into one of our stores and be the kind of customer who's quietly cheering on the young people who are in there doing the work.