Mission is to go west and help - The Australian

Emily Crawford with Amelia, 3, and Cooper, 4 months / Pic: Stephen Cooper Source: The Daily Telegraph

MISSION Australia has long been associated with inner-city homeless-ness, in particular through its Missionbeat program.

Now the charity is extending its helping hand further across Sydney, with a new $13.7 million centre for disadvantaged families at Kingswood, near Penrith, opening today.

The service operates 22 two- and three-bedroom units for struggling families, along with day care, outreach support, parenting programs and a toy library.

An estimated 1000 families will use the centre every year.

Mother-of-three Emily Crawford said the new centre was fantastic for western Sydney.

She takes part in the charity's Young Parents Program, which had previously been held at other locations across the Penrith region.

The program will now be run on site.

"It's a great place for the kids to come," she said. "They love it. The play equipment is great."

Mission Australia CEO Toby Hall said charity organisations were traditionally based in the inner city because historically that's where the need was.

But Mission Australia has now dubbed western Sydney as the "heartland" of family homelessness in Australia, and Mr Hall said a lack of services in the region meant people often fell through the cracks.

"Increasingly we are having more and more problems in western Sydney," he said.

"It's two major things - a lot of people have lost their jobs and they haven't been able to get new jobs. And then there is family breakdown."

According to Mission Australia figures, one in every five homeless families accesses services more than 20km away from their personal support networks.

It comes as more than 15 per cent of Sydneysiders live below the poverty line, with the median rent for a typical house now at $520 a week.

At the 2006 census there were 599 homeless families in the Parramatta local government area, 572 in Blacktown and 397 in Auburn.

These numbers are tipped to grow when the results of the 2011 census are released next month.

As well helping people who find themselves homeless, the service also aims to prevent disadvantaged families from ending up on the street.

Mr Hall said there was a great need for a centre like this in Sydney's west.

"We have developed a centre to really focus on western Sydney which is the heartland of family homelessness," he said. "We also want to help families who are on the edge."