Hard night ahead

Lucy Saw Centre chief executive Anne Moore will step outside her comfort zone next week when she sleeps rough for the Vinnies CEO Sleepout.

Mrs Moore will join 116 professionals sleeping overnight at the WACA on June 19 to help raise money and awareness for homelessness in WA.

Working at the Rockingham women’s refuge for more than 20 years, Mrs Moore said she had witnessed firsthand the heartbreak of homelessness.

“This is a good opportunity for me to do something that recognises that I understand that homelessness is a serious issue,” she said. “Because of the work I do here at the women’s refuge, I see many women and children who are homeless because of domestic violence and it just adds to the pain and the anguish they have.”

Mrs Moore said it was often difficult for women with domestic violence issues to secure a rental property, because their circumstances were viewed as “troublesome”.

“We see it daily and we are working very hard on the homeless issue,” she said.

She said it was obvious homelessness had increased in the region.

“We see people in Rockingham that we’ve never seen before, sleeping on benches in the parks and at the beaches,” Mrs Moore said. “It is a growing issue and in a very wealthy State such as WA it is almost shameful.”

Mrs Moore said doing the sleep-out was a way for her to understand what homelessness might feel like.

She hoped others in the Rockingham community would support the Vinnies initiative.

“I think more people need to put their hand up and say ‘we know this is a problem and we have to help fix it’,” Mrs Moore said.

Last year the sleep-out raised more than $1.1 million dollars for Vinnies homeless services in WA.