Be the change that's needed.
Join us in creating a rural healing and learning space for those experiencing homelessness.
About Hakea Homestead
Hakea Homestead is in the early stages of development, but our dream is big. With your help, we’re laying the foundations for a place where healing is possible, and futures are rebuilt with dignity and skill.
Our mission is to empower people experiencing homelessness to rebuild their lives through trauma-informed support and accredited skills training in a safe rural environment, enabling lasting independence.
Our Ethos, Values and Standards for Care
Our Ethos
Hakea Homestead is a safe, welcoming and trauma-informed community where people experiencing homelessness can rebuild stability, dignity and hope through shared living, practical learning and meaningful contribution.
It is intended to be more than accommodation: it is a home, a learning environment and a working community where people meet, share knowledge, develop understanding, build friendships and work together toward a more stable future.
People from all walks of life are welcome at Hakea Homestead.
The culture of the Homestead is grounded in dignity, respect, professionalism, shared responsibility and community connection, with an emphasis on creating the kind of environment where trust can be rebuilt through consistent relationships, supportive routines and shared contribution.
Our Community Standards
Everyone who lives in, works in, or visits Hakea Homestead is expected to help create an environment that is respectful, calm, inclusive and safe.
This means treating every person with dignity, patience and courtesy, using respectful language, valuing difference, respecting privacy and boundaries, and acting in ways that support the well-being of others.
Hakea Homestead is a shared community, so everyone is expected to contribute positively to daily life, care for shared spaces and engage with others in constructive and responsible ways.
Bullying, intimidation, abuse, discrimination, violence, humiliation and behaviour that undermines safety, dignity or trust are not accepted at Hakea Homestead.
Our Approach to Care
Hakea Homestead takes a trauma-informed approach to care because many residents may have experienced homelessness, exclusion, stigma, disrupted relationships and low trust in institutions.
For that reason, care is shaped by emotional safety, predictability, respectful communication, clear information, calm responses and a commitment to avoiding shame or re-traumatisation.
Support at Hakea is intended to build confidence, agency, skills and connection rather than dependence or humiliation.
The Homestead brings together housing, practical routines, shared activity, learning, wellbeing support and community participation so that residents can strengthen capability, rebuild trust and move toward greater self-reliance and belonging.
Our Values
SEE THE PERSON, NOT THE LABEL.
Everyone at Hakea is more than a diagnosis or a problem. Each person has a story, experiences of power and threat, and ways they learned to survive.
LEAD WITH RESPECT AND SAFETY.
Hakea is a place where people can feel safe, welcomed and treated with dignity.
Clear routines, fair rules and calm responses help everyone feel secure.
CURIOSITY OVER JUDGEMENT.
When behaviour is challenging, we ask: “What might have happened?”
We remember that many difficult behaviours started as survival strategies.
NOTICE STRENGTHS AND EFFORT.
We look for what people do well, not just what goes wrong. We name effort, courage, kindness and improvement when we see it.
BUILD THE FUTURE TOGETHER.
We ask: “What do you want to be different?” and “What’s one small step from here?”
Everyone at Hakea, including management, farm staff, kitchen crew, welfare team and residents, work side by side to create a valued, responsible and productive future.
SHARE KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND COMMUNITY.
Hakea is a place to meet, share ideas, develop friendships and work together.
By learning and teaching skills, we help each other grow and contribute.
STAY IN ROLE, WORK AS A TEAM.
Non-clinical staff are not therapists, but they are powerful supporters.
When someone needs more help, we involve the welfare team and keep working together.
Why Hakea. Why now?
The Problem.
On Census night 2021, 122,494 Australians had no place to call home, up 5.2% from 2016, and still rising. In our own backyard, 757 people were homeless across the Queanbeyan–Goulburn region, a 15.4% jump in just five years. Across the ACT border, every single measure of homelessness was trending upward.
And those numbers only capture who was counted. Every day in Australia, around 300 people seek help from a homelessness service and are turned away, mostly because there is simply no accommodation available. Nearly one in three people who needed emergency shelter didn't get it.
Most homelessness is invisible. Only 6% of people sleeping rough are on the street; the rest are couch-surfing, overcrowded, or cycling through crisis accommodation. They don't need another emergency bed. They need time, safety, and the chance to rebuild.
That's what Hakea Homestead is for.
Hakea Homestead is creating something new.
The Journey.
Every person's path is different. Here's what it can look like at Hakea.
🏡 Arrive & Settle In. You get a safe room, regular meals, and a welfare team in your corner. No pressure. Just space to breathe, meet people, and start finding your footing on the farm.
🌱 Stabilise. Work becomes routine. Medical and mental health support is close by. You're building trust with the team, with the land, and with yourself. Most people are in this phase for around 18 months.
🛠 Learn & Qualify. You're ready to go deeper. Move into a small shared house on-site and start working toward a real qualification in horticulture, hospitality, animal husbandry, or maintenance. A Certificate or Diploma that opens doors.
🏠 Live Independently. With a qualification in hand, you move into your own on-site unit with a formal lease. You're building a rental history, a work reference, and a future on your terms.
🚀 Step Out. When you're ready, Hakea helps you take the next step, into a job, into the community, into a place of your own. You leave with skills, qualifications, and people behind you and still in your corner.
Most residents stay 3–5 years. That's not a long time. But it's long enough to change everything.
Why Rural?
Most homelessness services are built for cities. Hakea is built for something different.
Most homelessness services are built for cities. Hakea is built for something different.
Distance from chaos matters
For many people experiencing homelessness, the urban environment is part of the problem: familiar triggers, unsafe relationships, and a service system that moves people on before they've had a chance to heal. A rural setting creates genuine separation from those pressures.
The land is the therapy
Research consistently shows that structured outdoor work, caring for animals, growing food, and maintaining the land reduce anxiety, build routine, and restore a sense of purpose that clinical settings alone can't replicate.
At Hakea, the farm isn't a backdrop. It's the program.
Hands-on beats classroom
Many people who've experienced homelessness are more comfortable learning by doing, in small groups, outdoors, with their hands, than sitting in a lecture room.
Our training is built around that reality, not around institutional convenience.
It's real work, with real outcomes
Residents don't do busywork. They produce food, care for livestock, run a kitchen, and maintain a working property. Those are skills, references, and qualifications that follow them long after they leave.
And there's room to grow
A rural property gives residents physical space. Space to be alone, space to think, space to rebuild.
Something that's impossible to offer in a crowded urban shelter.
The city will always be there
Hakea gives people the chance to find themselves before deciding which way to go.
Our Plan towards establishment
Found the Homestead
Acquire a site to create a welcoming and stable home for our initial participants.
This could be an existing farm with a homestead and shearers' quarters, or a green site with an ex-mine demountable camp.
Outfit living spaces, communal areas, and necessary farm infrastructure to launch our program.
Registration, licensing fees, staff recruitment and basic administration costs.
Develop Programs
Tasks and activities with trauma-informed wrap-around care.
Create programs that align with RTO accreditation requirements and homestead needs in a trauma-informed wrap-around care environment.
Programs that cover hospitality, maintenance, animal husbandry, and horticulture.
Deliver Accredited Training
Partner with an accredited RTO and training providers.
Establish partnerships with health and well-being professionals and Registered Training Organisations to ensure participants have access to the support they need.
Transition to Independence
Job readiness and housing pathways.
Supporting participants who are ready for independence to step into secure work and long‑term housing of their choice, building on their trade qualifications, rental history and strengthened life skills.
Stakeholder Pathways
For Landowners
Do you have rural land that could change lives?
Hakea Homestead is looking for its first home. We're seeking a suitable rural property, an existing farm with a homestead and outbuildings, or a greenfield site, within reach of Queanbeyan, Goulburn, or the ACT border region.
What we're looking for:
Sufficient land for a working farm enterprise
Existing or adaptable accommodation for up to 24 residents
Access to water, power, and basic infrastructure
A landowner open to a long-term lease arrangement
What we offer:
A structured, six-year lease with fair commercial terms for our pilot program.
A resident workforce that actively maintains and improves the property
A social legacy as your land becomes the foundation for dozens of people rebuilding their lives
A partnership with a governed, ACNC-registered not-for-profit.
Your land doesn't have to sit idle. It can become something extraordinary.
For Training Providers & RTOs
Help us build pathways that last.
At Hakea, training isn't a program bolt-on; it's woven into everything residents do. We're seeking Registered Training Organisations and industry partners to co-design and deliver accredited qualifications across our core enterprise areas.
We're looking for partners in:
Horticulture and land management
Hospitality, commercial cookery, baking, and food service
Animal husbandry and agriculture
Maintenance, building, mechanical, and grounds
Business and administration
What a partnership with Hakea looks like:
On-site, hands-on delivery in a real working environment
Small cohorts with trauma-informed wraparound support
Residents who are motivated, stable, and ready to learn
A shared mission; qualifications that open real doors
Training at Hakea isn't charity. It's some of the most meaningful delivery your trainers will ever do.
Express interest in an RTO partnership
For Referral Agencies
Working with someone who needs more than a short-term solution?
Hakea Homestead is designed for adults who have exhausted crisis options and need genuine time and stability to rebuild. We're not a crisis service; we're a long-term pathway.
Hakea may be right for your client if they:
Are over 18 and experiencing homelessness or at serious risk
Are ready (or nearly ready) for a structured, supported environment
Would benefit from hands-on work, fresh air, and distance from urban stressors
Need accredited training and a pathway to employment and independent housing
We work closely with:
Community homelessness and housing services
Mental health and AOD providers
Centrelink community engagement officers
First Nations organisations and youth services
We're currently in our establishment phase and building our referral network, so when we open our doors, we're ready to serve the people who need us most.
For Volunteers
You don't need a farm or a fortune. You just need to show up.
Volunteers are the heartbeat of any community organisation, and Hakea is no different. Whether you have professional skills or just a willingness to help, there's a place for you here.
Ways to get involved:
🛠 Skilled volunteering. Offer your expertise in areas like governance, finance, marketing, IT, legal, construction, or social work to help us build a stronger organisation.
📣 Community awareness. Help spread the word in your networks, at community events, or through social media. Every share matters when you're building something from scratch.
🎪 Events and fundraising. Help organise or support fundraising events that bring the community together behind a shared cause.
🤝 Future on-farm volunteering. As Hakea grows, we'll welcome volunteers to work alongside residents on the farm, mentoring, sharing skills, and building connection.
Volunteering with Hakea isn't about saving anyone. It's about standing alongside people who are doing the hard work of rebuilding their own lives.
How Your Donation Will Be Used
Every donation to Hakea Homestead directly supports our crucial start-up phase, helping us make lasting change.
•Cover Start-Up Essentials:
Registration, licensing fees, staff recruitment and basic administration costs.
•Secure a Safe Rural Property:
Acquire a site to create a welcoming and stable home for our initial participants.
•Set Up Essential Facilities:
Outfit living spaces, communal areas, and necessary farm infrastructure to launch our program.
•Develop Support Services and partnerships:
Establish partnerships with health and wellbeing professionals and Registered Training Organisations, ensuring participants have access to the support they need.
Frequently Asked Questions
Helping with events, fundraising or community awareness
Offering professional skills (administration, marketing, finance, IT) to strengthen our start‑up
Financial donations can be made by Direct Debit to our Bank Account.
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Hakea is for adults over 18 who are experiencing homelessness. Particularly those in the Queanbeyan, Goulburn, and ACT border region who need more than a short-term bed.
We're designed for people who are ready for a structured, supported environment where they can stabilise, learn, and rebuild at their own pace.
This includes people who have been rough sleeping, moving between crisis services, living in overcrowded housing, or in boarding houses with no clear path forward.
Our primary focus is South Eastern NSW and the ACT border area, where the need is significant and existing long-term services are limited. However, we believe the right fit between a person and our program matters more than geography. If you're working with someone outside the region who you think Hakea could help, get in touch.
Farm work is central to how Hakea operates, but we don't make it a condition of being here. Residents start by exploring different activities across the property to find what suits them. This may also include catering, admin support or learning to be a mechanic. Some will move toward formal qualifications; others will find meaning and routine in the daily rhythm of farm life itself. We meet people where they are.
Every new resident is welcomed by our welfare team and given time to settle in. There's no pressure to commit to a program or training path immediately. Residents get a private ensuite room, regular meals, access to medical and mental health support, and help connecting with Services Australia and other services they may need. The first priority is safety and stability, and everything else follows from there.
Most residents stay between three and five years. That length of time is intentional; it's long enough to build genuine stability, earn a qualification, develop consistent work habits, and establish a rental history. Short-term programs can stabilise a crisis; Hakea is designed to change a trajectory.
Residents take part in the farm's working life. Animal care, horticulture, maintenance, kitchen and hospitality work, or land management, depending on their interests and stage of the program. Welfare staff check in regularly, and training sessions are built around the work rather than away from it. It's structured but not institutional.
Hakea is a home, not a facility. Residents can come and go. As they progress through the program and rebuild family connections, overnight visits from family are actively encouraged. Independence is the goal, which means practising it while support is still available.
Residents can work toward nationally recognised Certificate and Diploma level qualifications across a range of areas, including horticulture, commercial cookery, baking, hospitality, animal husbandry, agriculture, automotive and machinery maintenance, and business administration. Qualifications are delivered in partnership with Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and are real credentials, the same ones earned by any apprentice or trainee in the workforce.
That's fine, and it's common. Many residents start by simply building a routine through farm work before they feel ready to commit to a qualification pathway. Our welfare and training teams work together to support each person at their own pace. Informal skill-building and work experience are valuable in their own right.
Once established, Hakea Homestead will be a Company Limited by Guarantee, a not-for-profit structure regulated by the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC). We are registered with an ABN (20 937 906 718) and are in the process of securing Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) and Public Benevolent Institution (PBI) status. The organisation is directed by a volunteer Board with expertise spanning social welfare, land management, adult learning, business, and governance.
We are currently working toward DGR status with the Australian Taxation Office. Until that registration is confirmed, donations are not yet tax-deductible. We'll update this page as soon as that changes, and if you'd like to be notified, drop us a line.
When we are an ACNC-registered charity, Hakea Homestead will be required to meet ongoing reporting and governance obligations and publish annual financial information. Every dollar donated during our establishment phase goes directly toward securing land, building our program, and opening our doors. We'll publish our financials as required by the ACNC and keep our supporters informed along the way.
Hakes Homestead is a long-term passion project of Mick Andrews. Mick is a Registered Counsellor with experience in building social networks across local communities. Mick's vision is a network of farm-based homesteads across regional Australia providing long-term, dignified pathways out of homelessness. The organisation is building a board and advisory network drawn from the fields of social welfare, agriculture, health, and business. People who believe that with the right environment and enough time, people can rebuild their lives.