Catherine House $1.2m budget cut could risk up to 19 jobs from Adelaide’s only specialist homeless service for at risk women

Women left homeless trying to escape domestic abusers are now waiting to find out if help can still be there.

Dozens of at-risk women are seeking help from a longstanding Adelaide shelter which is grappling with a $1.2m budget cut that could threaten up to 19 jobs, it says.

The Hutt Street Centre says a $1.2m budget hit from July 1 could result in 12 staff losing their jobs.

Catherine House has revealed that about 30 women escaping domestic violence are on its waiting list to access a crisis accommodation service which will lose $1.2m in State Government funding from July.

The cut will also affect the 33-year-old Catherine House’s outreach program which supports between 30 and 35 women, the agency’s Jaylee Cooper said.

Catherine House – SA’s only specialist homelessness and recovery service for women – and the Hutt Street Centre on Friday learned they would be collectively stripped of $2.4m in government funding under a reform of the homelessness sector.

Ms Cooper said 19 staff work in the crisis accommodation and outreach program that has been hit by the budget cuts.

“We think there will be some job losses but we don’t know what that looks like yet … we do have other services,” she said.

“Our next step is go to back to the government and find out … what it means for our staff and more importantly our clients and women staying with us.”

Hutt Street Centre chief executive Chris Burns. Picture Dean Martin

And Catherine House’s marketing manager Jaylee Cooper.

She said the cuts erased a third of the organisation’s budget. She said women – many escaping domestic and family violence – could stay in crisis accommodation for up to three months.

“We can’t possibly come up with another $1.2m,” she said.

Catherine House and the Hutt Street Centre were unsuccessful in tendering for one of five new homeless service “alliances” under a government homelessness funding and service provision restructure.

Human Services Minister Michelle Lensink said the reform would not reduce the overall $70m in public funding to the welfare sector.

“We listened to vulnerable South Australians who told us the system was broken,” she wrote on her Facebook page yesterday.

But the funding cuts to Catherine House and the Hutt Street Centre have been resoundingly criticised on social media.

The State Opposition said 16 jobs would go from the Hutt Street Centre.

The centre’s chief executive Chris Burns said he was unable to comment on staff numbers as the agency was still to assess the “full impact” of the cuts on its services. The centre supports 2000 people a year.