BY ANNE PITSTOCK
HOBART — On July 27 Tasmanian health minister Judy Jackson announced that the state's Labor government had backed off from its May 11 decision to close the Caroline House women's refuge.
Up to now, Caroline House has been funded through the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP), a federally funded program administered through the states. It is the only women's shelter in southern Tasmania to provide services to women with mental health, drug and alcohol problems.
Caroline House is currently working to full capacity and at times has been forced to turn women away.
Following public objections, Jackson announced that Caroline House would remain open but would no longer be funded through the SAAP, but instead through mental health and drug and alcohol programs.
Caroline House president Kath Venn told Green Left Weekly she did not believe the announced funding change would have a significant effect on the service that the shelter provides.
However, Laurene Kelly from the Hobart Women's Shelter expressed concern that the government is trying to convert the refuges into general accommodation services. The refuges would then no longer cater to the specific needs of women seeking refuge from domestic violence and women with mental health and drug and alcohol problems. Instead, they would provide an umbrella service for homeless women. If this were to happen there could be a significant impact on the type of service being provided by Caroline House and staff may be unable to cope with the demand.
In its May 11 announcement, the government had declared that in addition to closing Caroline House, the three other women's refuges in southern Tasmania would have re-tender for government funding and provide general services to homeless women.
Kelly told Green Left Weekly that, as far as she was aware, none of the four refuges in southern Tasmania were involved in the selection process which singled out Caroline House for exclusion from SAAP funding.
She believes that the government's shift from SAAP to the mental health/drug and alcohol program sources was part a bipartisan Labor-Liberal attempt to privatise public welfare services. Kelly pointed out that the welfare services which are presently having their funding cut by the government — those for women and children — are precisely those most in demand.