$100,000 helps to tackle poverty and homelessness
Responding to poverty and homelessness was the aim of our collective giving campaign 'A Fair Go'. 20 grants are empowering grassroots responses to these vulnerabilities
Who We Help
Our Impact so far
15Million
Funds Dsitributed
1,259
Organisations Supported
181,800
SleepSafe Kits Donated
We recognise that homelessness can happen to anybody, and can take many different forms. So we support people from all walks of life and help to provide the right support at the right time to help end or prevent homelessness.
31% of people we support are sleeping rough in a tent, car, or makeshift camp
30% of people we support identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
9% of people we support as LGBTQIA+
38% of people we support are young people under 24 years of age
Through our work, we support grassroots organisations and people in need through 6 areas of impact:
Supporting people towards a home → Olivia’s story
Olivia was 18 when she first experienced homelessness. As a refugee, she had little support and spent years with significant mental health challenges, cycling from service to service. Now at 24, she’s just secured long term housing and with StreetSmart’s help, Olicia moved in with essential furniture from kitchen appliances to soft sheets for the bed, to create a real home.
Providing immediate emergency relief → Tracy’s story
Tracy is in her 20’s and living out of her car after being priced out of her rental. She was struggling to pay for petrol, food, and medication. With StreetSmart’s help, a local community service could cover her car registration costs. This meant she could avoid sleeping rough and still legally drive to work, while working towards long term housing.
Boosting health and wellbeing → Jerry’s Story
Mahmoud is in his 30’s and his young family were going hungry to keep up with their increased rent. At risk of homelessness, a StreetSmart funded food agency provided hampers with fresh produce, eggs, dairy and meat to Mahmoud’s family. This allowed them to keep a roof over their heads and fill the lunchboxes. “We are so grateful. Thank you for providing hope, and a sense of stability and relief, to our family”.
Boosting health and wellbeing → Jerry’s Story
StreetSmart funding has been critical for our street outreach service, helping us stock up with medical supplies like bandages and cover running costs like petrol to provide free healthcare. Recently we helped Jerry, who is in his late fifties and has been homeless for more than 8 years. With outreach, we prevented Jerry’s wounds from infection and the associated hospital admission, and linked him with further housing support.
Access to education and employment → Sam’s Story
Sam experienced abuse and homelessness from a young age. Having the chance to be trained and work at a local enterprise turned things around. Sam says “the stable income means life is more manageable and I’m no longer relying on Centrelink. I can buy proper food now and have a fully stocked up fridge at home for the first time in my life” (FY23)
Strengthening through advocacy → Mackenzie’s Story
“Fundraising brought the school together for an important cause and taught us that a small contribution can go a long way. It also started a conversation around homelessness that we know our students will take back to families and the wider community”
For more information or to discuss partnerships opportunities, please email: partners@streetsmartaustralia.org
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Recently Funded Projects
Interested in receiving support? Here is what you need to know…
StreetSmart plays a unique role in the homelessness sector providing funding and support for smaller community-based and grassroots homelessness and community services. These front-line services are under-resourced, have limited fundraising capacity and find making formal applications for funding challenging. We support these organisations to plug funding gaps, support core programs and enable them to innovate and test new ideas.
We are able to fund both non-DGR and DGR organisations. Our focus is the support of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We ask larger organisations (over $2 million + annual turnover) to contact us to discuss appropriateness of an application.
Please read our full grant making guidelines below for further information and contact details.
