News from the Lord Mayor's Office, 7 August 2025
By Wollongong Lord Mayor Councillor Tania Brown
Homelessness does not discriminate.
This National Homelessness Week, I’m encouraging everyone to take a moment to consider the complexity of the issue, and the role we play as individuals and as a community to address it.
It’s quite an astounding figure but, according to Mission Australia, on any one night there are more than 122,000 people experiencing homelessness.
That means, if we were to consider the population of Wollongong which is currently around 221,000, that would mean it’s equal to more than half of those who call this city home, going without a roof over their head each night around Australia.
It’s a sobering thought. Especially when you consider that this statistic includes more than 17,600 children under the age of 12, and that 1 in 7 of these people are over the age of 55.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to tackling homelessness and there are a wide range of complex and varied reasons why an individual or family might not have a home to go to.
The one uniting factor is, however, that we as a community need to approach homelessness with empathy, respect and care.
At Council, we work with a range of knowledgeable organisations to support those who are homeless across our CBD and suburbs.
One of the barriers to people facilitating or seeking help can be knowing where to start.
Coinciding with National Homelessness Week, we’ve worked with various locally based service providers and organisations, as well as people with lived experience of housing instability, to develop a Homelessness Info Card.
This card lists useful information for those sleeping rough – or for those community members and organisations who are keen to help – with the details of support services in this local area.
It’s a small card, but it can have a big impact and help those offering or looking for assistance to take the first step.
We shared this card with those who attended the Homelessness Week Services Expo earlier this week at Lighthouse Church in Wollongong. The Expo was supported by the Rough Sleepers Working Group, co-chaired by the Department of Communities and Justice and the Wollongong Homeless Hub and Housing Services.
The event complemented the existing work that we do to support those who are homeless in our community such as the way our library branches and services are welcoming spaces that allow people to connect with others, escape extreme weather, access computers, and charge devices.
While Council alone can’t solve homelessness, we’re an important part of the solution. As an organisation, we play a part in educating people about homelessness and ensure it’s a problem we approach as a community with empathy and kindness.
Empathy is so important in any conversations about homelessness and it’s something the late Father Chris Riley AM lived by.
I was deeply saddened by last week’s news that Father Riley had died after a long period of ill health. I know the loss of Fr Riley, a prominent Catholic priest and founder of Sydney charity Youth Off The Streets, will be felt by many in our community who knew him. He was such a steadfast and passionate advocate for homeless and disadvantaged youth, and he changed so many lives through compassion and advocacy.
It's a legacy worth reflecting on this week and one we can all carry on, together.
