Roxanne Shaw is the recently appointed Registrar for Community Housing in NSW. Ms Shaw's presentation outlined the regulatory framework that will come into place in June 2009 covering all organisations that enter into arrangements with Housing NSW for the use of Government properties for the purposes of providing community independent or supported housing. This includes SAAP services in NSW providing housing for their clients.

The Registrar is an independent statutory officer reporting to the Housing Minister on regulatory matters, The Registrar assesses community housing providers for purposes of registration, oversights them when registered, and investigates complaints from those housed in community housing.

Substances abuse and mental illness are not primary causes of homelessness. The high presence of both of these among the chronically homeless population are in fact a result of the persons homelessness, rather than the cause of it.

Startling conclusions, but one borne out by the evidence presented on findings of two studies of homeless persons undertaken in Melbourne between 2003 and 2006 by Dr Guy Johnson. This article contains a summary of Dr Guy Johnson's presentation, and his slide show presentation and audio recording.

Data from the studies showed that for only 15% of the homeless persons in the studies was substance abuse identifiable as the primary cause of their homelessness. At at the same time, 43% of the homeless population in their study had substance abuse issues, which means that 2/3 of the research population developed substance abuse problems after becoming homeless. For young homeless people the likelihood of substance abuse becoming a significant issue was 4 times more likely following them entering into chronic homelessness.

Jenny Mason is the Director General of the NSW Department of Community Services.

Ms Mason began by commenting that 2009 has already been an incredibly demanding year for people working in the homelessness sector and also in Governments across Australia in the homelessness area.

'We have a Federal govt that is inserting itself into human services areas it hasn’t before which is great but is also placing demands on States to channel this burst of enthusiasm and get it to where it is most needed' she said.

She said that it was expected that New South Wales will see as much as $204 million under the National Partnership on Homeless with the combined NSW and Commonwealth funding contributions. Under the NSW Homelessness Action Plan, currently nearing finalisation, the national priorities agreed to under the NPH would be embedded, with the aim of achieving a more integrated homelessness system, and that this will present challenge for SAAP and also for mainstream services. She praised the constructive involvement of the homelessness sector in the development of the Action Plan.