State government decision to not provide $160,000 means clinic has to ‘pull the plug’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A 30-year-old community legal centre for homeless South Australians and those about to be evicted will close after a government funding cut.

Adelaide’s Housing Legal Clinic is the latest service to bear the brunt of a funding squeeze, after the New South Wales Welfare Rights Centre said it feared for its future because of a $55,000 cut last month.

The chair of SA’s Welfare Rights Centre, Malcolm Downes, said the service would close on 30 June because the Liberal state government had not provided about $160,000 in future funding.

“We reached a point where we needed to pull the plug to look after our clients, partners and our staff,” he said. “It was a tough decision.”

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The outreach service offered legal advice and referrals to about 500 homeless and at-risk people a year, as well as representing people facing eviction at South Australia’s civil and administrative tribunal.

Downes said the previous Labor state government had also reduced its funding, and a “windback of federal funding” had squeezed its budget further.

The centre had provided free legal advice to Centrelink recipients until the earlier cuts. It has since survived on cash reserves, and the Housing Legal Clinic was its last service.

Downes acknowledged the centre did not have “a right to exist”, but said its closure did not mean homelessness would go away.

“There are 6,500 homeless people in South Australia,” he said. “We will probably add to that significantly.

“The legal problems can be an unpaid fine. Those fines escalate and they either get a custodial sentence or they have to scrape together the money which means they get evicted.

“Being out of stable accommodation is the tipping point.”

The SA human services minister, Michelle Lensink, told InDaily, which first reported the story, the government had stopped funding the centre because of “performance issues”.

“Over several months, the SA Housing Authority has been actively engaged with the [centre] regarding long-standing concerns with the performance of their service,” she said.

“When we grant taxpayer-funded money to any organisation it is critically important we have certain performance criteria attached to that funding.

“Unfortunately [the centre] was unable to put forward proposals to address performance issues, and it was determined funding would cease.”

Downes acknowledged performances issues had been raised but said they were an “excuse” for the government to meet efficiencies.