The Homeless Outreach Project idea came after the former St John of God Hospital was demolished last month – a well known home for Bunbury’s homeless.

The project is the brainchild of community service organisation AccordWest and will be carried out by a two-person team.

With the help of police and City of Bunbury rangers the project will attempt to communicate with Bunbury’s homeless community and help them take their first steps back towards a better life.

AccordWest chief executive officer Neil Hamilton said the project would address a group of people who have not previously been reached in the city.

“I fully support the demolition of the former St John of God Hospital but I know a lot of homeless people were using the building as their home,” he said.

“It will be a way of getting a figure of the numbers of homeless people in the city – they’re a bit masked as the moment.

“The project will help us understand the issues the most vulnerable people in the South West are facing.”

Mr Hamilton said the project will be a lot of work when it is first started.

“The project will need a substantial amount of night work and will be difficult to administer because you’re trying to approach people who are quite vulnerable,” he said.

“The team will need to build up the trust of the people – historically homeless people are hard to engage and they will need to trust our intentions are well meant.

“It will be largely about trying to make them as comfortable as possible talking with the Outreach Team and then working on their safety.”

The program will start in the Bunbury CBD with hopes to roll it out to other suburbs and towns.

“We will start in what we believe is a high intense area before hopefully looking to spread out to places like Australind or Collie,” Mr Hamilton said.

The program is funded by the Department of Child Protection.