Housing and Support Program (HASP): Final Evaluation Report

Importance of the Supports Facilitator Role
There was a perception amongst all stakeholder
groups that the move within DCCS to change the
Supports Facilitator role as described in the reforms
outlined in ‘Growing Stronger’ (2007–2011), may
impact on communication and accountability:
And I think the other thing with Disability Services
is where you had a dedicated bunch of Supports
Facilitators, now it appears it’s the same team that
we deal with for all our other clients who have also
taken a HASP client as well. So we don’t seem to
have that dedicated bunch of Supports Facilitators.
I don’t know how that will work because we don’t
know the [other] Supports Facilitators very well
so that’s a rough start. Whereas before there was
a core group of Supports Facilitators who were
involved with HASP.
Housing Offi cer
3.2.2 The nomination process
A number of issues concerning the nomination process
were raised amongst the different stakeholders
interviewed. These included expanding the eligibility
criteria, the arduous application process, the due
date of applications, and the length of time between
nomination and allocation of housing.
Expanding the eligibility criteria
Staff from both Housing and Homelessness Service
and DCCS felt that there would be benefi ts from
broadening the criteria to include those with diffi cult
tenancies. There was a perception that inclusion of
this group in HASP would provide early intervention
and possibly prevent loss of housing and the
subsequent need for hospitalisation:
To also help those people who may already be
tenants of Queensland Housing and they’re facing
eviction, and we have to say, ‘oh, we can’t have you
in HASP, because you’re not eligible’ we have to have
people completely decompensate, get re-admitted,
at huge cost to the taxpayer, and, then we might be
able to nominate you for HASP. I mean, I mean it’s
insane, because we’re putting the ambulance down
the bottom, rather than the fence on top in that
regard, when we do have unspent (funds).
Supports Facilitator
Arduous application process
Many people noted the arduous nature of completing
the paperwork to nominate clients for HASP. The
number of forms to be completed and the amount
of supporting documentation required were diffi cult
for some services to organise. Even relatively simple
requirements, such as the need for a birth certifi cate
in certain circumstances to apply for housing, can
generate a number of phone calls and visits to a
client’s home to locate such a document. In smaller
teams, it can be diffi cult to fi nd an occupational
therapist to do an assessment and get all the
paperwork prepared:
Unfortunately it does fall back to the allied health
teams — certainly in our workplace — in completing
the whole application, which everyone will know
is a massive document ’cos not only is it the HASP
application and the allied health reports that come
with it, it’s also the DS application as well, so we
normally have a relatively short timeframe to do that
and it’s an enormous amount of work on top of all of
our clinical duties.
Mental Health Worker
Due date of applications
Applications are usually due at the end of January.
Districts usually have an earlier timeframe for local
processing applications so that they are ready for the
January deadline. The period mid-December to mid-
January is a time when many staff take leave, and some
services operate on reduced staffi ng numbers over the
Christmas and New Year period. It has been suggested
that the due date for applications could be brought
forward, possibly to the end of November, to alleviate
this problem.
Housing and Support Program (HASP)
27