Nepean’s Street Count of Rough Sleepers
The Regional Taskforce on Homelessness (incorporating Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury and Penrith) is committed to conducting Street Counts of people who are sleeping rough in the Nepean region incorporating the LGA’s of Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury and Penrith. Street counts are a key initiative of the Taskforce’s initiatives to gather evidence to help us understand the experiences of people sleeping rough and set measurable targets to reduce their numbers.
The objective of the counts is to collect accurate and up-to-date information about the numbers of people sleeping rough in the region. The identified methodology for conducting street counts has been taken from street counts conducted by the City of Sydney and used in other Australian and international cities.
The methods used by the Taskforce have been developed in consultation with rough sleepers to ensure sensitivity and accuracy and the support of people who are homeless. To that end several experienced homelessness consumers have taken on the roles of Adviser to assist the Taskforce in establishing a network of consumers who can supply information on the homelessness hotspots that will be counted. The City of Sydney have been essential to the development of these participation strategies and have generously supported the Nepean initiatives.
Previous results of other Street Counts have been used to inform ongoing policy development to assertively address homelessness in the area being counted. It is hoped that the Street Count data will provide the Taskforce with a means to measure the effectiveness of the initiatives that are being established locally to address homelessness as part of the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness.
On the 3rd/4th of May, from 11pm – 3:30am, a point-in-time street count was conducted in the Nepean region. The Nepean region spans the Blacktown, Penrith, Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains Local Government Areas. 189 volunteers participated in counting a total of 508 people sleeping rough or in government funded homelessness accommodation.
Please find a report on the count here: Nepean Street Count Case Study