Campaigns

Catholic Social Services Victoria has added its voice to the following national campaigns:

Raise The Rate

Catholic Social Services Victoria has joined the national campaign to Raise the Rate for Good, which is key to reducing poverty and inequality in Australia. The goal of the Raise the Rate campaign is to fix our social security safety net for good so that it keeps people out of poverty, with income of $500 per week. Experts define the poverty line in Australia as $480 – $500 per week for a single person with no children, including housing costs. 

Before the COVID-19 crisis, the rate of Newstart had not been increased in real terms for 25 years, while the cost of living, especially housing, has gone through the roof. 

There is broad support for a permanent increase to the JobSeeker Payment (formerly Newstart Allowance), including from community organisations, such as anti-poverty networks, unions, business groups, not-for-profit organisations, local governments, territory governments and several federal parliamentarians.

Polling shows the majority the community agrees that we cannot go back to the old Newstart rate of $40 a day (Essential Research 2020).  

The key recommendations for the campaign are:

• Increase the base rate of JobSeeker Payment by at least $25 a day, and ensure everyone receives at least $65 a day.
• Ongoing indexation of payments in line with wage movements at least twice per year
• Establishment of a Social Security Commission to advise the Parliament on the ongoing adequacy of income support payments

Everybody’s Home

Australia’s housing system is broken. From people wanting to buy their very first house, to others struggling to just find a safe roof over their heads, it’s clear that the system just isn’t working for everyone.

Crazy house prices and a system focused on property investment is locking a generation out of home ownership and creating more renters.

Growing competition for rental properties are causing rents to skyrocket, so every-day workers can no longer afford to rent ordinary homes and don’t have the security they need.

With more and more people struggling to afford the private rental market, the demand for affordable or social rental properties is outstripping supply.

And a chronic shortage of social and affordable housing is forcing record levels of homelessness.

But there really are simple things our government can do to fix this. And that’s what Everybody’s Home is all about – we’re working together to call on our government to bring balance back to the system, so that everybody has a place to call home.

So join the campaign now, and together, we can make our decision makers fix this broken housing system.

Home Time

The Australian housing system needs to be reformed. New data shows that there are almost 40,000 children and young people who are alone with nowhere to live. The system fails to deliver enough safe housing for young people under 25, with no priority funding for this demographic in homelessness plans and agreements. There is also a lack of tenancies tailored to young people and their needs.

Home Time is a national campaign advocating to unlock the housing system for young people who lack access to secure and affordable housing. Their campaign calls on all Australian governments to create housing options for youth with nowhere to live. 

Home Time advocates for a jointly developed and maintained pool of 15,000 youth tenancies including public, private, and community housing options. These measures have the potential to benefit young people and transform the lives of some of the most vulnerable in society. 

Join the campaign and allow more homeless youth to have a chance at pursuing their goals and living independently.