The Act to End Street Sleeping project is a joint commitment between the Institute of Global Homelessness (IGH), under their Vanguard Cities global initiative, the NSW Government, the City of Sydney, and ten of the sector’s leading NGOs. These organisations have agreed to collaborate to end street sleeping across NSW. The targets are to halve street sleeping by 2025 and work toward eliminating it across NSW by 2030.

During the week 18 November 2019, the End Street Sleeping Collaboration will conduct a Connections Week. The objective is to eliminate the anonymity of homeless people and create a measurable census to target housing and other support services for particularly vulnerable members of our community. The list will be created by conducting a comprehensive survey. This task will help to develop By Name List, which is the first step on our path to provide the evidence we need to inform policy innovation and create systems change to prevent people ever having to sleep on the street.

Connections Week will take place over four days:

• 5-9am Monday 18 November
• 5-9am Tuesday 19 November
• 6-11pm Wednesday 20 November
• 6-11pm Thursday 21 November

During connections week trained volunteers will meet and gather information from people sleeping rough about their housing and healthcare needs. Prior to being interviewed all potential interviewees will be required to sign a consent form, information on all participants is strictly protected and privacy and data protection information is available for participants.

How can you get involved?

Approximately 100 volunteers will be required throughout registry week. All volunteers will be required to attend a compulsory training on Sunday 17 November, at East Sydney Community and Arts Centre from 1-5pm and must be available for all 4 days of the event.

Registry Week Volunteers: These volunteers will work in teams in designated areas of the city to engage people who are sleeping rough and record information using a survey tool. A reasonable level of fitness and strong interpersonal skills based on respectful relationships and confidentiality are required for this role.

For further information please contact Katie Phillips, Homelessness Project Officer, City of Sydney. kphillips@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au or (02) 9265 9667.