Doors Wide Open committee working hard to support Bunbury’s most needy

A Bunbury non-profit drug and homelessness support organisation has welcomed a new staff and support committee, launching comprehensive support to the South West’s at-risk population. Doors Wide Open provides access to a variety of services and resources to help people recover from addiction. The centre focuses on providing a place for friends and family to have access to resources and services to help them cope with their loved one’s addiction and to have a greater understanding of their addiction. With the newly-established staff and support workers in the organisation, and newly-approved grants from the State Government, DWO is actively providing wraparound support for friends and families of those who are struggling with drug addiction and homelessness. Peer Support Worker Tanya Smith said DWO had been using the By-Name List program in collaboration with Break Away and Anglicare to track and quantify homelessness and have access to a real-time picture of how their service is working. “When we started in Bunbury, we had eight people on that list, we are now up to nearly 60, and we only started a few months ago,” she said. “A lot of people on the streets are having a lot of underlying issues ... the whole aim is to support these people into housing as soon as possible and then help them with everything else, instead of making them jump through barriers first to get a house which is a general struggle.” Group chair Tyril Houghton said DWO was providing support to the community that is not yet addressed by the State Government. “At the moment with government policy, they assume that once you stop using drugs, you will be ready to be thrown back into the world, but that’s not the case and I think that’s one of the things in the future we are going to have to look at in more detail,” she said. “We know it’s important to support these people to maintain strong links with friends and family, because its a full two years before the brain, after the input of meth, can get back to where it was before it started.” Peer support worker team leader Adam Hocking said the success of the organisation was derived from support workers who had the same experiences. “I’d like to think that Doors Wide Open is being run from the ground from people who have come from that lifestyle, every peer worker here, bar a couple, have direct lived experience with either drug or alcohol abuse or homelessness,” he said. “In 2017, I walked in here as a homeless amphetamine addict, and three and a half years later I work here to help people go through what I’ve been through.” “We are pillars in the fact that everyday we are people showing other people it’s possible, and that’s probably our secret to success.”