Safe house for Caulfield
Lighthouse has offered a property in Caulfield to serve as a crisis safe house where youth who need full-time professional support can get the help they need.
A safe house for Jewish youth is being set up in Caulfield to help tackle the issue of homelessness.
Pathways – which supports and empowers people from religious Jewish communities who need a safe space to question their lifestyle, practices and beliefs – is partnering with the Lighthouse Foundation, a major charity working to end youth homelessness, to establish the service.
A symposium on Jewish youth homelessness last Wednesday heard that an estimated 37 young Jewish people aged 12-24 experience homelessness or marginal housing every year in Victoria.
Dassi Erlich, Pathways youth and family programs manager, said, “We’re very excited at Pathways to be partnering with Lighthouse to look at what we can do to work with the kids that are just falling through the cracks and have no one to catch them.”
Lighthouse has offered a property in Caulfield to serve as a crisis safe house where youth who need full-time professional support can get the help they need.
The initiative requires seed funding of $350,000 per year for the next three years to become operational. The project received an immediate boost when the Robert & Jack Smorgon Foundation pledged $100,000 directly after the community briefing, kickstarting the fundraising campaign.
Pathways, which currently supports people aged 18 and above, will soon be able to expand its services to assist young people from age 14. Pathways founder Leah Boulton said homelessness affects people from all parts of the Jewish community, not just the religious. Cultural sensitivities can create barriers around reporting family problems within the Jewish community.
At the symposium, one person with lived experience of the issue was quoted in the presentation as saying, “No one wants to say that they came from an abusive home, mainly because no one would want to marry someone who has been through abuse.”
The organisation is also developing a Jewish foster and kinship care program. “We’re calling for foster carers in the Jewish community to look at different types of foster care,” Erlich explained.
Pathways’ research revealed that cultural sensitivities often prevent appropriate intervention.
As one religious community member was quoted saying in Wednesday night’s presentation, “If I report a family to Child Services because I don’t think the children are safe … where will those kids end up? So, I’m too scared to report.”
Pathways aims to address these concerns by providing culturally appropriate crisis housing and support services, ensuring that vulnerable Jewish youth can access help while maintaining their cultural and religious connections.
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