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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/20/rough-sleepers-homelessness-australia-stigma-adelaide-street-connect-ntwnfb>
"On a cold, bright autumn morning in the Adelaide parklands, curious dogs and
mostly incurious humans pass by tents half-hidden in bushes.
After Bikram Lama – the “birdman” of Sydney – died last year, thousands of
people streamed past his body, oblivious.
People walk past those sleeping rough every day, in every Australian city, and
increasingly in regional areas.
Rough sleepers are both the most visible and the most invisible homeless
people. They’re in public, but the public avert their eyes.
A program in Adelaide is helping rough sleepers be seen. Locals who spot them
can make a notification on a website called Street Connect by dropping a pin on
a map, along with details of the person spotted.
That triggers outreach workers to check on them.
The Toward Home Alliance team – a complicated, compassionate, chronically
under-resourced network of outreach services – searches the city in a grid,
adding extra checks wherever those pins are dropped.
They leave water, protein bars, Band-Aids and tampons, and ask rough sleepers
what else they need. They know people’s names and their backstories.
Some they check in on are keen for a chat, others not so much.
Street Connect is “a way for the community to be able to help inform us, and
direct us to areas of concern that we’re not seeing”, says Toward Home’s senior
manager, Shaya Nettle.
“It’s also really helpful for identifying and responding to community hotspots.
It ensures we’re not missing things.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
