Around 25 people per day accessed homelessness support services at UnitingCare Canberra City’s Early Morning Centre (EMC) on 17-18 July, the opening weekend of its new seven-day-a-week operations.
The ACT Budget released in February allocated additional funding to the EMC for a 12-month trial to allow the Centre to open from 9am to 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
Previously, the Centre was open weekdays only, at 7.30-8.30am for breakfast and 9am-2pm for the Community Hub. The weekend opening includes access to all the Community Hub services and facilities such as computers, phone and showers, along with providing a morning tea for service users (known as guests), but not breakfast.
EMC director Nicole Wiggins said, overall, the first weekend “proved quite successful with more people than we expected as usually it can take time for word to get around”.
“The guests are very pleased that we are open on weekends so they have somewhere to go to get out of the cold and have something to eat,” she said.
Ms Wiggins said government funding covers approximately 75% of the Centre’s costs, with the remainder coming from supporters and donors.
The expansion to a seven-day offering was an exciting progression for the EMC, which recently celebrated the 16th anniversary of its official opening, she said. After a trial run during the post-Christmas week of 2004, the EMC opened its doors in February 2005, with the official opening on 7 July 2005.
Since then, demand for the service has increased, growing from a small early morning breakfast facility to a community hub providing facilities, essential services, support and community activities to Canberra’s most vulnerable.
“We originally only opened until 11.30am [weekdays] and then in October 2017, we extended the hours until 2pm so we were then able to provide lunches and expand the number of external service providers visiting which saw a big increase in numbers,” Ms Wiggins said. Between 2013/14 and 2017/18, annual attendance at the Hub almost doubled from 5,970 to 11,544.
Weekday numbers average between 80 and 120 guests and weekends are expected to cater for around 50 to 60 people.
“The numbers did drop during COVID and when the lockdown happened in March last year, we moved to takeaway only for about six months and gave access to one person at a time to use shower and other essential services. Number have been increasing back to pre-COVID over the last few months.”
At the EMC, guests are provided with a place where they feel safe and respected, where they have a voice and can be heard, where they are part of a community that supports them.
Ms Wiggins said the weekday breakfast service is mainly run by volunteers, while the Community Hub is operated mainly “by paid staff with qualifications in Community Services, Alcohol and other Drugs and Mental Health so the EMC can provide the best possible care, support and referral for guests”. Some volunteers assist during the day with putting together food parcels, and making and serving lunch.
The EMC plans to host an event on Saturday 31 July to officially launch the extended opening hours to be attended by Minister for Homelessness and Housing Services, Rebecca Vassarotti. EMC guests will be performing music at the event.
