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Monday, August 4, 2025
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Labor to make work from home a legal right
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Overwatch push for Meadow Creek solar farm proposal
RECOVERY SUPPORT Gateway Health Wangaratta team members including (from left) Bindi Thomson, Jen Rollings and Clare Schultz are excited to receive council funding to support their Growing Recovery program at Wangaratta’s drug residential rehabilitation facility. Story page 7
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Growing crisis Spike in Wangaratta, North East homelessness has support services seeking answers
Homelessness in the North East has reached alarming new heights as local support services report a sharp rise in people seeking help. As Homelessness Week begins on Monday, North East housing provider Beyond Housing released the latest data for the past financial year, which saw a 21.8 per cent increase in people accessing the service
BY BAILEY ZIMMERMANN bzimmermann@ nemedia.com.au
in Wangaratta. The 789 people seeking housing support are part of the 3152 people who have been through Beyond Housing’s entry points in the North East and Goulburn Valley, which is up seven per cent from last year.
Currently, over 500 people are being supported, who are homeless and waiting for accommodation and/ or specialist support across Victoria’s North Eat and Goulburn Valley regions. Beyond Housing chief executive officer Celia Adams said any increase in homelessness was unacceptable. “This year’s Homelessness Week theme of Homelessness Action Now is timely
and critically important,” she said. “It is unconscionable that people who are vulnerable, including children, young people, and older people, are dealing with homelessness in this country.” Ms Adams said a commitment to regional and rural Victoria housing investment - where private rental is scarce, services are stretched and vulnerable people were
out in the cold - was the key to solving the surge. Beyond Housing data indicates one in five people who were supported by the housing provider were sleeping rough, 25 per cent were over 55 years-old and more than six per cent were escaping family violence. Some 27 per cent of people were under the age of 25, which North East youth and family service organisation
NESAY sees as an overrepresentation of the demographic in homelessness. Wangaratta-based NESAY chief executive officer Laura Shortis said over the past financial year, NESAY has supported 150 young people who were at risk of experiencing homelessness and 110 young people and families to sustain housing through financial support. ■ Continued page 2
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