inCommunity

With the festive season not long behind us and the promise of a new year still in our grasp, we invite you to watch Pete's story. After his rental property became unaffordable and followed shortly by a relationship breakdown, Pete spent two years sleeping rough in his car within the #Springfield community. During this time, Pete experienced so much. From the generosity and kindness of local community members who shared food and clothes and sought to advocate for him. To the darker realities of sleeping rough, that of night-time violence and experiencing a significant decline in his health. It was an extraordinarily tough time. However, the friendships he made during this time would set in motion a new future, and last year, Pete began navigating his pathway back to housing after being referred to inCommunity Connect . At first, he spent time with our Assertive Outreach team by his car, building connections and trust with the team. Slowly, changes were forthcoming, and the inCommunity Connect team secured emergency hotel accommodation for him via the Queensland Government (Department of Housing and Public Works)'s Immediate Housing Response. There, Pete continued regular check-ins with the inCommunity Connect team and, after three or so months, following a successful interview with Churches of Christ in Queensland, he secured a unit to rent. With the support of inCommunity Connect, its valued partner Fantastic Furniture, and the Churches of Christ team, Pete's unit is now furnished with the essentials, and he is settling into his new home. At the end of last year and just a month into living in his new home, we met up with Pete, who generously shares a little of his story in this video. Congratulations, Pete! We wish you a wonderful year ahead in your new home.

Our annual Women's Club Christmas Lunch was a huge success! Creating a safe space for women to connect, access support and flourish through social engagement is the focus of our club for women in the Ipswich community. So the annual get-together for the festive season is a much anticipated event and as you can see by our video recap here, everyone had a great time! 🎄

Today marks the end of one hell of a chapter in the Journey of the Tenancy Skills Institute. A chapter made up of 25,000 stories. It marks the end of our government funded tenant education in Queensland. It is the end of the chapter, but not the end of the book! The photos are significant. The first is of Nerissa Wade & I catching up for a final lunch with our Cairns team, Gavin M Ah Kee and Jessica Fleitas. It’s a ‘bye for now’ lunch. The second and third are of the cafe at Holloways beach which is where our Cairns Chapter really started, and ended. The pic with the blue sky is from the day that Mark Davidson and I interviewed Gavin to join our team. The pic with the cloudy, rainy sky is from today, it’s quite fitting really! The last pic is from 35,000 feet and is a reminder that beyond the clouds is always a clear sky, sometimes it’s just harder to find. A huge thank you goes out to our entire Tenancy Skills Institute team, there is so much to be proud of. Now we will start writing the next chapter!

The PM Assist App is the latest cross-sector initiative between the Real Estate Industry and Community Sector that the Tenancy Skills Institute is leading as part of inCommunity. Great to have our longstanding partner McGrath North Lakes on board so early, getting involved. Thanks as always Laura Valenti and team for your support!

"Grateful the Nurses are Here" For a very long time, it has been evident to us as an organisation that the Ipswich community needed an on-the-ground health care service, most significantly for those people sleeping rough. Our organisation's partnership with OneBridge, funded thanks to the financial support of Beddown donors, is now offering opportunities for this type of immediate health care. The impact is extraordinary. From our 2023-2024 Annual Report published this week, we share a story that unpacks how this partnership works alongside the inCommunity Connect Assertive Outreach and Case Management teams and the types of essential health care delivered by OneBridge. Highlighting just two months of this critical partnership in this story, we know that an average of 60 Consultations for Primary Health Care occur each month as the year draws to a close, illustrating the ongoing need for this immediate health care service in Ipswich. We give a heartfelt thank you to Beddown donors and supporters for enabling this essential work to happen. Click image to read the full story here. (Pictured here OneBridge Nurse Tessa and inCommunity Connect Women's Club participant Bec) For more stories from inCommunity Inc's 2023-2024 Annual Report visit https://lnkd.in/gwKBJd3s (Select 2024 Annual Report, Click Open in Browser)

13,000 people engaged with at least one of our programs in the 2023-2024 period, double, plus some more from the previous year—a year of huge impact. This time last week at our Annual General Meeting, our CEO Paul Tommasini and Deputy CEO Nerissa Wade delivered inCommunity Inc's 2023-2024 Annual Report: Innovate. Inspire. Independent. This report explores how these three words embody the 'in' within inCommunity and how we embed them at each touchpoint of our organisation as we seek to support people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. We highlight critical initiatives and programs we delivered in 2023-2024, such as: 🔸 Preventative and early intervention strategies via the Tenancy Skills Institute;  🔸 Deepening our commitment to the specialist profession of Case Management in the Community Sector as led by inCommunity Connect to ensure we continue delivering a quality specialist housing and homelessness service; and  🔸 Onsite access to health care in Ipswich or bed nights for people sleeping rough via Beddown initiatives. When demand for our services has never been higher, our organisation continues to work tirelessly to inspire people as they move forward on their pathway to stable housing. We invite you to take a moment to read just some of the incredible stories that occurred this year - a year when 13,000 people were inspired to believe they could! https://lnkd.in/etiY-4jD (Select 2024 Annual Report, Click Open in Browser)

"Through our early intervention work we are finding that many households experience only one change in circumstances that put their tenancy at risk". Thank you to Local Ipswich News for discussing the current homelessness crisis with our Deputy CEO Nerissa Wade in this week's edition. She explains that our specialist housing and homelessness service has never seen demand like this in 42-plus years. As Nerissa shares further, "As we head into 2025 and with key indicators showing the housing and homelessness crisis is deepening, we urge the government to consider preventative and early intervention strategies that our organisation offers." Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gRcvKEhF

Congratulations to all of the recipients of The REIQ Awards for Excellence 2024. The Tenancy Skills Institute and inCommunity Connect team members were honoured to join in the celebrations at Saturday's awards night. Through our cross-sector collaboration work, we have built extraordinary connections with the Real Estate Industry, an essential stakeholder in our organisation's drive to address the issue of homelessness. It was also terrific to see long-term supporters of our organisation inCommunity Inc be recognised for their excellence, such as Laura Valenti and her team at McGrath North Lakes, for their Contribution to the Community throughout the night. Thanks to the REIQ and the Queensland Real Estate Industry for warmly welcoming us to these celebrations, their night of nights for the year!

On Remembrance Day, inCommunity and our brands of Beddown, inCommunity Connect and the Tenancy Skills Institute join the broader community, honouring those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for us in times of war and conflict. Lest we forget. 

Laid-back, polite, good-natured, and open to the future, 20-year-old Omar* is like any young person you may know. He is ready for the world of crypto, AI, and whatever good fortune lies ahead. We met with Omar on his last day at Hargreaves House, a crisis accommodation program for young people managed by inCommunity Connect . Ticking off his final goal set there of securing long-term accommodation, Omar generously shares his story, including how the support he received from our Case Management team has given him invaluable life experience in such a short period of time. He also shares how accessing free tenancy education delivered via the Tenancy Skills Institute has been critical to his success in reaching this next milestone on his pathway from homelessness to housing. His is a remarkable story. Read about it in our latest blog here. *Client's name has been de-identified.