Leah Watkins

Leah has worked in the homeless sector for over 30 years in both Australia and the UK. She started in frontline work including emergency accommodation, day centres and outreach.

After moving back to Australia, she worked as a consultant for 10 years doing service design, evaluations, action research and strategic planning in homelessness and broader the community sector before getting a real job and returning to manage homeless and mental health services.

For the past 4 years she has managed the 50 Lives 50 Homes project in Perth which is an interagency collective impact project to sustainably house and support the most vulnerable rough sleepers.

In 2019-20, Leah took part in the European Housing First Train the Trainer course with three other Australian participants. As a group, they helped draft the Housing First Principles for Australia (endorsed by the Homelessness Australia board in March 2020) and will be designing and delivering Housing First training, including a national train the trainer course (COVID permitting).