Mission Australia believes all Australians should be able to live in a safe, secure and affordable home

On any given night in Australia, almost 100,000 men, women and children are homeless (Chamberlain and McKenzie, 2003). Almost half of them are younger than 25. Also, about 1.7 million Australians are experiencing ‘housing stress’ - that is, spending at least 30% of their income on housing costs.

In Sydney’s inner city, 4000 people are homeless every nigh, and over 15,000 people defined as homeless in the greater Sydney area. (ABS 2001) Approximately 14% of these people are sleeping rough on the streets with the remainder living in either stop-gap housing (temporary shelter, crisis accommodation or staying with friends and family), boarding houses (without security of tenure) or in marginal housing (i.e. residents of caravan parks who experience difficulty in accessing more mainstream housing and rent out of financial necessity, rather than lifestyle choice).

Realestate.com.au has partnered with Mission Australia to run a campaign to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness in Australia, and Sydney in particular. The campaign will see $1 donated for each unique visitor to the site - up to a maximum of $100k - to Mission Australia. The campaign and website will be promoted via numerous events, PR, outdoor marketing and online advertising.

The key event will be the installation of a ‘cardboard city’ at three locations around Sydney throughout May 2008. This cardboard city will see a number of boxes (branded with homelessness messages) located at busy sites representing the number of homeless people in Sydney. The sites include Martin Place (1st and 16th May), Bondi Beach (10th May) and Chatswood (13th May).

Volunteers are needed to help out at the sites over the four days by giving out information and speaking to passers-by about the campaign, Mission Australia and homelessness issues in general. If you’re interested, please get in touch with Fiona Ivits, Volunteer Coordinator, on volunteering@missionaustralia.com.au or 02 9288 0070, by 11th April.