Sunrise Co-operative Housing Inc.

For the past six years, Sunrise Co-operative Housing has housed people on lower incomes from various backgrounds in South Australia – but what they do isn’t just about providing a room.

Sunrise Co-operative Housing Inc. operates as a community of people working and learning together in order to make sure that each of their members is supported. They offer cost-free education and training in areas such as tenancy, maintenance, finance, membership and community development.

With a focus on the disadvantaged in their area, Sunrise is registered with Centrelink and works with Employment Options Inc. to offer volunteering opportunities for people. In early 2011, Sunrise was awarded a grant from Community Benefit SA to employ a Supervisor from a local Work for the Dole Program, who worked with a small team to install Gutter Guard to their 12 properties and provide some much needed garden maintenance work for some of their older members.

Because of this, the Christopher White (pictured), the Supervisor and his assistant have now had the chance to learn a variety of new skills and develop new work practices which can be valuable in seeking employment or even starting their own business.

Sunrise Co-operative Housing Inc. also works closely with their local council and individuals in their community. Their greatest project to date has been the self-funded research and installation of solar panels to their houses.

This was done with the assistance of retiree, John Hochwald from the local area. His expertise and knowledge of solar power was invaluable in choosing the right technology which was supplied and installed by Energy Matters.

How Connecting Up has been able to help Sunrise Co-operative Housing

Sunrise sustains itself on the rental income and volunteer work from its members for day-to-day expenses. With strict rules for their operating budget, Sunrise relies on grants to make larger purchases and take on other projects. Connecting Up has been able to help reduce the technology costs for Sunrise Co-operative Housing Inc.

Sunrise members rely on computers to perform many of their tasks, especially now as the much of their correspondence with umbrella bodies and government departments occur online. Being able to provide their members with the latest software for their computers is vital when it comes to sharing files and opening documents from others.

Through DonorTec, our nonprofit technology donations and discounts program, Sunrise was able to access donated licences of Microsoft software, greatly reducing their technology costs.

This means that they are able to use their finances towards maintaining their houses and investing in new projects.

What donated technology products did Sunrise Co-op Housing Inc. access through DonorTec?

• Microsoft Office 2010 Standard Edition
• Microsoft OneNote 2010
• Microsoft Expression Studio 4 Web Professional
• Norton Internet Security 2011

What Sunrise Co-operative Housing says of DonorTec

Elaine Henn, Community Development Officer at Sunrise says, "For years, only 2-3 people had a computer, our software didn’t always match that of the organisations with whom we were required to interact and things took a long time to work through and make things compatible."

"The cost of providing software for so many computers would be prohibitive to the Co-op without Donor Tec ! It would mean that funds would need to be directed away from other projects to fund basic computer requirements to enable each person to properly undertake their work, be this written correspondence, Data Bases, Financial management or general record keeping.  We rely on Donor Tec to provide the software we need to upgrade to, as requirements change and as we undertake varying projects."

Find out more about Sunrise Co-operative Housing

• Sunrise Co-operative Housing on the Connecting Up Directory
• Sunrise Co-operative Housing on Give Now (donate)

Further information on co-operative housing in South Australia

All co-ops in SA are subject to Housing SA Income & Assests Tests as well as various orientation and preliminary training courses.

Those unable to participate in work associated with being part of the operation of the organisation by way of disability may be more suited to housing within an Association, where paid staff manage the housing and finances.

All enquiries can be made via www.sa.gov.au/communityhousing or Community Housing Council of SA Inc.: www.chcsa.org.au  or 8362-1022 for further details of the various processes required for registration.