Gay and lesbian refuge: the real scandal
By Kim Spurway
"2010 Scandal: Refuge failing gay youth" read the front headline in the Sydney Star Observer on March 20. The article by Will Harris in the magazine declaring itself the "Gay Community's Newspaper" alleges that a lesbian and gay refuge, Twenty-Ten, is in danger of losing funding from the Department of Community Services.
Aldo Spina and Paul Kearns, former members of the management committee, say the service is overfunded and overstaffed, not functioning efficiently, and not accountable to the lesbian and gay community. The article claims the refuge is heading for a $27,000 budget shortfall, that its rules exclude homeless youth by barring sexist or racist behaviour, that the service fails to provide sufficient sexual assault counselling to gay men, and that the wrong criteria are used in choosing staff because interviewers included questions on feminism and abortion.
As a relief worker at the refuge, I know these allegations are untrue. The four full-time staff work their shifts alone, with a one-hour change-over. They are not all on shift at once, as the article implies. The budget shortfall is due to a new award and is common to most refuges in NSW. All residents are offered sexual assault counselling (though not all want to take it up). The rules on racist and sexist abuse in the refuge are a mark of basic respect for Aboriginal and migrant youth who might use the service. Some other youth services bar anti-lesbian and anti-gay abuse.
The workers' opinions on abortion are important because young women using the service sometimes need objective, non-judgmental advice on this issue. Workers at the refuge are not chosen simply because of their political views on feminism or any other question. They are asked a series of questions on matters including drug and alcohol abuse, HIV, and lesbian and gay issues.
"The allegations are disruptive to the efficient provision of services to homeless youth", says Twenty-Ten management committee president Leeanne Robinson. "The malicious and reckless nature of the article could severely threaten the funding of Twenty-Ten whilst residents and staff have been adversely affected. It is completely unacceptable to have staff and residents under this kind of pressure. Furthermore the concept of safe space for the residents is threatened. This is paramount to any refuge."
In a letter to the Star Observer, Dez Wadelton, administration officer for the Youth Accommodation Association, goes further, saying the article is one-sided and "failed to mention the funding problems that are facing youth accommodation services as a result of the unwillingness of the state government to fund these services adequately, in particular to meet obligations under the Social and Community Services (NSW) Award. This has been a major issue since May when the award was handed down." He adds that around 100 youth accommodation services are in financial crisis because the government has withheld funding to cover the provisions of the new award.
Wadelton then lists some real scandals:
- the fact that the NSW Department of Housing charges market rent on houses for youth and women's refuges when the houses were bought for community use by the federal government and all rent from them is profit to the department;
- that numerous youth refuges are facing closure and two have already closed while the NSW government "sits on $16 million previously allocated to supported accommodation".
- that wards of the state are being forced onto the streets by the closure of residential units, and are ending up on the streets or in refuges.
"The real scandal," Wadelton says,"is that in a country as rich as Australia young people are forced onto the streets or into exploitative and intolerable social situations because of the housing crisis."