Dear Parents, Carers, Students and Staff,

Winter is certainly upon us and I don’t know about you – but I didn’t need to look at my calendar to realise it was here! The nights are suddenly very cold and frosty. We might be excited by reports of the snow fields opening earlier than planned for the ski season to begin in earnest but for the many homeless people across Australia the freezing weather will be a very hard cross to bear.

According to Homelessness Australia the homeless rate in Australia has increased 13.7% in the last five years. Homelessness Australia uses statistics from the ABS Census of Housing and Population and the AIHW Specialist Homeless Services data collection. The ABS Census is conducted every five years, with the most recent release being for 2016. These figures indicate that across Australia 116,427 people were counted in the Census as being homeless on Census night 2016 (up from 102,439 in 2011). In NSW alone there were 37715 people homeless which equates to 50.4 people per 1000 of the population. This figure represents an increase of 37% since 2011. 

To put this national figure in perspective, Australia’s two largest stadiums are each not large enough to hold this many people. The Melbourne Cricket Ground has a capacity of just over 100,000 and Stadium Australia can hold around 83,500 people.  It is difficult to imagine that so many people can be sleeping rough or otherwise homeless in Australia in 2021. Closer to home for all of us, it has been wonderful to see such a generous response from our school community to support the St Vincent De Paul hamper appeal. These hampers will be presented to our local Vinnie’s chapter at assembly this Friday.

With best wishes,

Steve Conlon

Acting Principal