HOMELESS services met with local real estate agents earlier this month to improve their relationships and learn ways to help clients facing eviction.
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Anglicare Northern Inland facilitated the project, which brought together workers from Pathfinders Specialist Homeless Services and EACH New England Regional Sustainable Housing and Homelessness to discuss issues surrounding homelessness and the early intervention services available to real estate agents and those at risk of homelessness.
“It affects a really broad range group of people. It can be children through to families through to single women, men. Anybody can be at risk of homelessness,” Anglicare Northern Inland CEO Larry Anthorpe said.
“It was to bring them together and to try and share the knowledge, I guess. So they can have a deeper understanding.”
Trish Thomas of Pathfinders was pleased to see the agents willing to keep working closely with local services, and said they were interested in expanding their knowledge base.
“It really was an opportunity for them to listen to how we do our work, and for us to talk to them about their expertise, because the real estates are a significant contributor to our community around providing accommodation.”
Jenny Devlin from LJ Hooker said it was great to put names to faces, and the relaxed format of the lunch meeting made everyone comfortable.
“If we can liasion with people that can assist clients when it's a difficult time for them, it helps them, and we need that. It helps, I suppose, get a good outcome if we can have someone to mediate,” she said.
“It just helps make us aware of the services for people that are having difficulty finding accommodation,”
- Brad White from Professionals said.
“The more education that's out there for the people in the industry, the more understanding is out there for what needs to be done.”
Brad said the meeting was informative and that he would like to see more in the future. He felt with so many government services and benevolent societies emerging, it was important for industry professionals to know what’s available.
“I think it was a very valuable exercise that we did, and hopefully that will continue to grow like a ripple effect. So we drop the stone in the water here, and it ripples out into the community and speaks to not just the real estate agents, but to the wider community as well,” Larry said.
