Why Our Work With Homelessness Continues to be So Important

Shopped in one of our stores recently? You may have seen signage, or been engaged by one of our friendly retail staff, about SleepSafe. Perhaps you went exploring in our About Us section, and ended up on the SleepSafe page — with its donate tag on the left side of your screen. Or, at the online checkout, you noticed the “Donate $2 to SleepSafe” button.

There’s a good reason you’re seeing this everywhere — because SleepSafe is our homelessness initiative, in partnership with charity StreetSmart Australia. We talk about homelessness in stores, we display signage, and we encourage support for our Sleep Kits via emails, socials and more. You may have seen other articles, like our celebration of raising over $1.1 million in funds, on Sheridan Life.

Why? Because we believe everyone deserves a safe place to sleep — this belief is the foundation of our corporate social responsibility. And as we reach our three-year anniversary, not only do we look back on the incredible work that’s been accomplished, we look at why we continue to do this work. And we’re bringing you along for the ride.

We invite you to read a more in-depth version of our story, but at a top level, SleepSafe is an initiative between Sheridan and StreetSmart, that raises funds for homelessness services. Every $15 raised sees a sleep kit — towel, flat sheet, fitted sheet and pillowcase — sent to one of these services and is then directly provided to a person in need — someone who’s experiencing homelessness. 

Funds are collected in-store, and online.

The impact SleepSafe has is two-fold. Local community organisations often do not have the resources — monetarily or with time — to purchase and supply new bedding for everyone who comes to them seeking shelter. Thanks to the generous donations from the Sheridan community, we can provide this essential material aid to the shelters at no cost to them.

People who come to these organisations — who may come with not much more than the clothes they’ve fled in — are provided with the security of their own bedding. This bedding can be used in temporary accommodation and taken with them to more permanent accommodation. Not only does it provide, as we say “the simple comforts of home” but it provides anyone seeking out these services with dignity.

In the past three years, we’re overwhelmed with what we’ve achieved — all of which would not be possible without the support of our generous customers. To date, this initiative has raised more than $1.23 million — over $800,000 of that in the last twelve months alone. That’s the equivalent of 82,179 sleep kits.

And so far, 64,452 kits have been distributed through 540 community partners. 110 of those partners are new; our recipient network has grown 26% in 2022. 

Because of these sleep kits, frontline services have saved $2.2 million worth of time — which they can then distribute to other essential needs within their organisation.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a person is considered homeless if they are “living in non-convential accommodation, or short-term or emergency accommodation.” This is as their currently living arrangement is “in a dwelling that is inadequate; has no tenure, or initial tenure is short and not extendable; or doesn’t allow them to have control of or access to space for social relations.”

The most recent statistic we have on homelessness in Australia — from the Census night in 2016 — estimates that more than 116,000 people are homeless on any given night.

Homelessness is very rarely the stereotypical image you see of people sleeping rough on the streets, only 7% of homeless people stay in dwellings like these. 

Homeless NSW explains that 44% of people experiencing homelessness are in severely crowded dwellings; 18% in supported accommodation for the homeless; 15% staying with other households — think crashing at a friends, or couch surfing.

Another 15% live in boarding houses, and 1% are in other temporary lodgings.

This is another time all preconceived misconceptions about homelessness need to be thrown out the window. Statistics from Homelessness Australia show:

• One in seven people coming to homelessness services are young people on their own (41,625 in 2020-21).
• 39.4% of all people seeking homelessness cite domestic and family violence as a reason for seeking assistance.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders represent 28% of specialist homelessness service users, although they represent 3% of the Australian population.

Of our distributed sleep kits, 34% of kits supported Indigenous Australians and 23% supported survivors of domestic violence. Within our community partners, 102 are domestic and family violence services; 57 are youth services.

Once again, it’s time to let go of what you may have thought caused homelessness in Australia — because the reality is there are multiple causes and external factors, which can all overlap and combine. It’s complex — which is why we had our friends at StreetSmart help break it down for us.

• 54% of people who are experiencing homelessness are unable to afford housing
• 34% are those escaping domestic violence
• 14% is due to a sudden loss of employment
• 13% is due to mental illness factors

We’ve touched on why the work we’ve done till now is so important — but the fact is, our work is only going to become more important.

This is partly because of the current housing market. Rent across the country has increased 9.1% in capital cities, and 10.8% in regional areas in the last 12 months alone; social housing has dropped 0.6% in the last decade. 

And, unfortunately, homelessness services are understaffed and underresourced — in 2020-21, almost 78,000 people needing homelessness help were turned away because of this.

Together, we can support those without a safe and secure place to call home. Your continued support allows us to provide bedding to those who need it, and relieve pressure on essential homelessness services across Australia.

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