Throughout the world frail elderly homeless men and women live and die in homeless persons night shelters, unable to access normal mainstream aged care services.

At the time of the formation of Wintringham in the late 1980’s, the situation was no different here in Melbourne where three large homeless persons night shelters were operating, all of whom had large numbers of frail elderly residents in need of hostel or nursing home care.

Workers at these homeless service centres found it extremely difficult to place frail elderly homeless residents within aged care residential services managed by the Church and charitable sector. As a result aged men and women lived and died in homeless persons night shelters  – places that were frequently violent and intimidating and totally ill-equipped to provide appropriate aged care services.

Unable to place these folk in mainstream residential facilities, it was decided to create a new welfare company called Wintringham and to build our own aged care hostels. With the active help of the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the then Commonwealth Government and its Aged Care Minister, Peter Staples, funding was secured for Wintringham to build three hostels for elderly frail homeless men and women. These three became McLean Lodge in Flemington, Wintringham Hostel in Williamstown, and Wintringham Hostel in Port Melbourne.

Although all of the large night shelters have now closed or been redeveloped, the problems of elderly homeless people unable to get into mainstream accommodation remain. In response, Wintringham is attempting to meet these needs by continuing with its program of building and managing additional housing and aged care facilities, while at the same time developing a wide range of community care and outreach services.

The founder of Wintringham is its Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Lipmann. The company honours the name of “Tiny” Wintringham, a homeless man who resided at the original Gordon House in Little Bourke Street. When it appeared that Gordon House was to be closed, Tiny gathered support from government, unions and the media which resulted in Gordon House being rebuilt on the banks of the Yarra River. This new building has now since closed, but Tiny’s successful fight against what appeared to be insurmountable obstacles, continues to inspire the company that has been named in his honour. 

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