Key leaders from Lutheran Care, the Toward Home homelessness alliance lead agency, addressed staff from Harcourts Packham on Thursday, 17 February, at their annual Kickstart event.

Lutheran Care Chief Executive Officer Rohan Feegrade, Toward Home Senior Alliance Manager Shaya Nettle and Strategic Lead Livia Carusi were thrilled to be asked to present at the event, which aims to inform and inspire the Harcourts Packham team for the year ahead.

The presentations focused on the issue of homelessness in South Australia, the transformational work of the Toward Home Alliance toward preventing and ending homelessness, and how the private sector does and can continue to play an important role in social change through corporate responsibility.

The team also highlighted Terra Firma, a partnership between the Toward Home Alliance and Harcourts Packham. The partnership saw the repurposing of a backpackers hostel in the Adelaide CBD into dignified short-term accommodation with accompanying support for Toward Home clients, diverting them from experiencing homelessness while they can receive specialised support from the Toward Home team.

“Terra Firma is an example of how non-profit community services agencies and corporate Australia can come together to make a real difference for vulnerable South Australians,” Mr Feegrade said.

“We are excited to give the Harcourts Packham team insights into the work we do in the community and hope it can inspire them to continue to look at ways they can leverage their skills and success to make a deep impact.

“We welcome our strong relationship with Harcourts Packham and wish director James Harcourt and his team every success in the year ahead.”

Harcourts Business Operations Manager Jacob Kinsman said Lutheran Care’s Toward Home leadership team was invited to speak “because we believe it is an important first engagement point for our wider team, and Toward Home (with LC as lead)”.

“These first months of 2022 have presented challenges and the COVID climate has so far largely precluded our wider team from visiting Terra Firma,” he said.

“We felt is critical that our team hear the problem of homelessness defined, as well as understand the broader social and operational context in which Terra Firma, as a concept and working model, is nested in.

“The next potential development in the partnership between Toward Home and Harcourts Packham is around growing housing stock and access to the private rental market, so it is important our staff can speak to these points with their clients, family and friends.”

Want to work with Lutheran Care?

At Lutheran Care and Toward Home, we welcome enquiries from like-minded businesses and organisations interested in how they can assist our work with vulnerable people and communities.

Please contact us via stateoffice@lutherancare.org.au to start the conversation.