Friendship and respect is the basis of support offered at City Baptist in order to walk alongside people who are homeless rather than look down.
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Pastor Jeff McKinnon has spent 13 years helping vulnerable people living on the streets of Launceston.
Mr McKinnon doesn't call it anything akin to the services provided by places like City Mission, but rather "the friendship model" along with advocacy headed by street chaplain, Stephen Avery.
"There is no local community of homeless people here in Launceston. Which is part of what Steven is trying to do, he's trying to hear what their voice is, to let them speak," Mr McKinnon said.
"If we can go advocate at Centrelink, or Anglicare or wherever, we can go and do that with them. It makes a huge difference."
Mr McKinnon's team also includes social pastor Kay Hunter.
"Our social pastor works with women at risk. She works with a number of women on the street. It's often either on the street or close to being on the street," he said.
City Baptist sees all sorts of vulnerable people living homeless and offers practical support like hot meals and a drop-in centre.
"One of the things we really try to do is make it a place of peace, often it's one of the few stress-free places in their lives," Mr McKinnon said.
Mr McKinnon is concerned about the increase of people living on the streets with an estimated 100 people living homeless in Launceston.
While City Baptist does their best to advocate for and support people who are homeless, volunteers notice issues for accessing other services especially with some zero-tolerance policies for aggressive behaviours.
"Our guys would never cope with going to that. They wouldn't turn up, they'd forget or they'd get angry and lose their cool and be told if they do it again they'd be asked to leave.
"They'll do it again, because they always do it again. There are other vulnerable people there who need to be cared for, you need to protect them from people acting out. But these guys need help.
"They're quite vulnerable people. As a society we don't do virtually anything for those people."
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Mr McKinnon said there were "massive gaps" in mental health care.
"I have constantly seen people in halfway houses who just do not know how to look after themselves," he said.
"Our best estimate is that 95 per cent of folk on the street have some type of mental illness."
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