PROJECT SUMMARY

Warrigunya provides safe, supported accommodation for men leaving prison. We have spent the last four years consulting, planning, liaising, building, and we have constructed four self contained units, a common room/large kitchen, laundry, office, public toilets and workshop on our 20 acre site at Darriman in Gippsland, Victoria.

We will provide holistic support and healing opportunities to enable the men to take a different path in life, one that leads away from prison and towards their families, community, and financial stability. This project is based on interviews with prisoners, people who support them in the justice and community service systems and their families.

The imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians is significantly higher than the rate for the total Victorian population and the gap continues to widen. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate almost doubled between 2011 and 2021, from 965.2 to 1903.5 per 100,000 adults. This is compared to a smaller growth in the overall imprisonment rate, from 110.2 to 138.7. In Victoria the prison population grew by 1% from 2020 to 2021, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it increased by 6%.
According to a AIHW survey, homelessness is far more common among people in contact with the prison system than among people in the general community. About one-third (33%) of prison entrants said they were homeless in the 4 weeks before prison. Furthermore, the link between unstable housing and offending for Aboriginal is recognised in the Victorian Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Framework Overview, “for those in contact with the justice system unstable housing can precipitate offending and housing is often a condition of bail, parole and corrections orders. Rehabilitation and reintegration into the community rely on stable housing. (AHV3, 2020, p.6).

The lack of social housing in the regional area of Gippsland is extreme and has been well documented in the recent parliamentary enquiry into homelessness (Hansard, 2019). Undertaking a review of current government strategies relating to housing and homelessness and through local consultation, it became clear that the housing crisis in the region had worsened, with people unable to be helped by agencies such as Aboriginal Housing Victoria and Community Housing Ltd due to shortages of housing stock. Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations reported that they were regularly supporting Aboriginal men exiting prison who, within a very short time, found themselves homeless and “sucked back” into a life where return to prison was inevitable.
Often those leaving prison are discharged into a few nights in a motel and then homelessness – sleeping rough on the street or for the lucky ones, on a mate’s couch. We have spoken to Aboriginal men who have found it so difficult on the outside, after the strictly controlled environment in prison, that they deliberately reoffend in order to go back to prison where they will be fed and have somewhere to sleep.
The need for supported transitional housing for Aboriginal men exiting prison that embraces healing as its foundation and embedded in program and service delivery and design was raised across the broad range of stakeholders consulted.