SUPPORT FOR $7.5M BID TO BREAK DRUGS AND HOMELESS LINK

A $7.5 million Victorian Government initiative to help 9000 homeless
people break the link between homelessness and drug addiction was
welcomed by leading welfare agencies yesterday.

The funding, over three years, will pay for 71 new beds including six
extra "residential withdrawal" beds specifically for homeless people,
five residential rehabilitation beds and 60 alcohol and drug supported
accommodation beds.

An intensive case manager at each of Melbourne's three big crisis
accommodation centres will monitor people referred to drug treatment
and ensure they have access to supported and related housing options,
employment and training opportunities, personal development and
recreational activities.

The funding, which also provides money for extra counselling and
home-based drug withdrawal services, will help drug users referred to
Hanover's Southbank Crisis Accommodation Centre, the Salvation Army's
Flagstaff Crisis Centre and the Society of St Vincent de Paul's Ozanam
Community.

Hanover Welfare Services executive officer Tony Nicholson said
conservative estimates showed one-third of Melbourne's crisis
accommodation unit clients were drug-dependent, a figure expected to
rise to more than 50 per cent by 2004.

"The levels of drug dependence amongst our residents has put enormous
strains on our centres over recent times and until today we haven't
been adequately resourced in terms of our staffing numbers or skill
base of our staff to adequately deal with the current rates of illicit
drug use amongst our residents," Mr Nicholson said.

"Without the initiative being announced today, crisis accommodation
centres such as this would face a pretty perilous future ... a future
where under the prevalence rates we are expecting in three to four
years' time, we have to face the choice of either having to deny
access to people with a drug problem or completely close down
operations."

Mr Nicholson said the initiative would tackle the fundamental
underlying causes of drug dependence and homelessness and reduce the
level of drug use on Melbourne's streets.

Health Minister John Thwaites, who made the announcement with Housing
Minister Bronwyn Pike, said 3000 residents a year would benefit from
the initiative, with 350 residents a year getting specialist drug treatment.

"We know there is a direct link between drug and alcohol use and
homelessness, and the key aim we have is to try and break that link,
to try to ensure that people not only have a home and housing but they
also have the opportunity to overcome their drug and alcohol use," he
said.

The Salvation Army's Major David Brunt said agencies had never before
been able to provide intensive case managers to help homeless clients
through drug treatment.

St Vincent de Paul chief executive Susan Campbell said Ozanam's 4000
volunteers would help residents participate in the community.

Opposition health spokesman Robert Doyle welcomed the announcement but
called on the government to provide more withdrawal and detoxification
beds, and to fund the naltrexone and buprenorphine detoxification drug
treatments.