Port Phillip Zero started in July 2019. The project takes a place-based collective impact approach to reduce the numbers of people experiencing rough sleeping by connecting with and getting to know each person, and adding them to the local ‘By Name List’ to enable a focused client-centred service response. Knowing everyone by name, understanding their needs and providing an integrated service response helps people find and sustain housing.  

It was the first Zero project in Victoria and is led by the City of Port Phillip and Launch Housing who have brought together local partners to collaborate, share data and provide a truly client-centred approach that helps build trust with clients who have often been moved from service to service over their many years of homelessness.

The goal of Port Phillip Zero is to achieve Functional Zero homelessness for people sleeping rough in the City of Port Phillip. This will be reached when the number of people entering and experiencing rough sleeping homelessness within a month is less than the average monthly placement rate into long-term housing, or three. Once achieved it must be sustained, with any future experiences of rough sleeping homelessness in the City of Port Phillip brief, rare and once-off. This will occur when the housing and support resources required to end homelessness are efficiently coordinated and sufficient to meet the needs of all people who sleep and live in the municipality.

Port Phillip Zero was the first Victorian project achieve quality By Name List (BNL) status in September 2020 and twelve months later it became the first Australian community to achieve a system shift, a measurable, meaningful reduction of 20% in rough sleeping homelessness, a key milestone on the path to reaching functional zero.

The City of Port Phillip has a long history of collaboration among its many providers with strong leadership provided by its council and on behalf of its local community, find out more about this work.

Council believes that everyone needs a home. Council has an enduring commitment to social justice and recognises homelessness, primarily a housing problem, as a priority. Affordable housing is an important element of our strategy to help those experiencing housing stress and who have no home. On any given night, around 25 people sleep on the streets, parks or foreshore in City of Port Phillip. There are many more sleeping on someone’s couch, in their cars, in crisis accommodation, rooming houses or overcrowded dwellings.

Housing secured and homelessness ended

Homelessness is ended when people move into safe, sustainable, long-term housing of their choice. This includes public or community housing, private rental or private ownership that meets an acceptable minimum standard of a self-contained dwelling with its own kitchen and bathroom facilities. The person must have security of tenure evidenced by a signed tenancy agreement. Long-term housing includes aged care and may include long-term special residential services.

How are we going?

The latest data from the By Name List (BNL) illustrates the scale of rough sleeping homelessness in the City of Port Phillip. It also shows how people’s circumstances change over time as they connect to the network of services in each project. This shows clearly the change in living situations over time as people travel on a pathway out of homelessness.

Sleeping rough and actively homeless

People are added onto the BNL when we meet them and they are sleeping rough. This means that they are in an unsheltered living situation, a car or an abandoned building or dwelling unfit for human habitation ega ‘squat’. When they are added they become ‘active’ on the BNL. This chart shows the ‘active’ number since the project started. Byshowing the number of people who remain sleeping rough we can see that people connected to the project gradually move into different living situations.

Actively homeless and changes in living situations

Most people prefer not to sleep rough and usually  move between different living situations as their circumstances change. The figure below shows this change as people connect to the services in the project. The chart shows that some people move into safer forms of sheltered emergency accommodation such as hotels, motels, or specialist crisis accommodations, or temporary housing including Transitional housing (THM) or Head Lease housing. They also move into community rooming houses and other forms of living with others which may have greater security of tenure but remain forms of homelessness. These are not their final housing outcomes and for that reason people remain ‘active’ even though their living situations may have improved. People could live in these for several years before an offer of social housing is finally made.

The most important reason people stay on the list and don't move into safe and secure homes is that there simply aren't enough homes in Victoria that people on low incomes can afford. If 10 homes are available and 50 people need homes, 40 people are going to remain without a home, no matter how hard everyone tries to house them. Based on current estimates and in agreement with Council to Homeless Persons, we know that Victoria needs to build at least 6,000 homes every year for the next decade to meet current and expected future demand.

Partners

Port Phillip Zero is being delivered in partnership with:

• The Alfred Hospital
• Better Health Network
• City of Port Phillip
• First Steps
• Housing First
• Launch Housing
• Ngwala Willumbong
• Sacred Heart Mission
• The Salvation Army
• Port Phillip Community Group
• Southport Community Housing
• St Kilda Community Housing
• Wintringham
• Enabling partners include the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing BPA, the Southern Homelessness Services Network and Victoria Police

• Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH)
• Homes Victoria
• Department of Justice and Community Safety (DoJ)

• Andrew McDougall & Frances Ilyine Foundation  
• Ballarat Foundation
• Collier Charitable Trust
• Creswick Woolen Mills (300 Blankets)
• Erdi Foundation
• Percy Baxter Charitable Trust 
• The Blueshore Charitable Trust 
• The Bowden Marstan Foundation 
• The Jack Brockoff Foundation
• William Angliss Charitable Fund
• Many generous individual donors