St Joseph’s Outreach Services was founded in 1998 as an “Emergency Housing Association” to provide accommodation opportunities for the homeless and marginalised in the community. The first facility to open was a crisis shelter for families with housing emergencies, and this was followed by the refurbishment of the old St Joseph’s Primary School, creating another 12 units. The vision of SJOS is to provide temporary, emergency and transitioning accommodation, and food services, to those in need in the community who are homeless or disadvantaged. All the services we provide rely heavily on the support of financial donations via fundraising, private donations, corporate and trust donations.
All our services are delivered by a very dedicated volunteer team, made up of different people from all works of life, who come together, volunteering their time and skills, with a common goal, to help others in need. SJOS has a close link to The Parish of South Yarra as the facilities we use are rented from the Parish. However, the volunteers come from all over the surrounding areas, with different ages, genders and ethnic backgrounds.