Gunnedah domestic violence victims to access crisis, transition housing from 2022

Construction of Gunnedah Family Support's (GFS) new transition house will start in 2022, while Jobs Australia's crisis accommodation is on track to be completed by early February.

Like Jobs Australia's Allawah Cottage, the GFS accommodation was originally going to be set up in an existing house, but the funds couldn't cover the cost of what was needed, so GFS got permission to build instead.

The transition house will provide women and children escaping domestic violence with somewhere to live while case managers work alongside them to resolve issues and connect them to relevant services.

This means a delay in opening, but GFS manager Vanessa Hodges-Schembri said "we felt we'd get better value for our money in building".

"We had an idea of what we wanted when we put grants in and what we found when we went to market was that the particular quality or style of house was just outside our budget," she said.

"We've been working with the builder to still tick all those boxes ... we're quite happy with the end product."

Ms Hodges-Schembri said they had been assured that the four-bedroom home, at an undisclosed location, would be ready by the end of financial year, which is the cut-off for the COVID-19 grant.

"It's a great opportunity to drill down and work very intensively in this window of time to really set a family up to sort of move on and succeed," she said.

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GFS will play a role in Allawah Cottage as well and Jobs Australia's Tracey Reid said she had developed a strong relationship with the team.

"I'm just feeling really positive," she said.

"We've built strong relationships, I feel now, with Gunnedah Family Support and it's going to be such a worthwhile community asset; not just for our community but for the whole New England North West.

"We will work together and help as many women and children as we can."

Allawah Cottage is fast becoming a reality as tradies swarm over the house to paint, install bathrooms, lay flooring, and a myriad of other tasks.

Ms Reid said there had been delays because of the rain and COVID-19 restrictions, but the end was in sight. In the meantime, Ms Reid and the Allawah committee have been networking with support agencies, including Homes North and the Salvation Army.

The committee has been behind a number of successful fundraisers this year to aid additional costs, and will work hard into the coming years to host more events to finance running costs.

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