At 71, Eryn found herself homeless in Queensland. With nowhere to turn and no support, she packed up her car and headed to the Upper Hunter, an area she had been familiar with years before.

Her speech was heartfelt.

“They don’t treat us like, the old word, ‘housos’,” Eryn said.

“To Brooke and Cliffy, who I have had a lot to do with, you’re brilliant.

“It’s like a big family, what a lovely town to be in.

“I have never been happier.”

Compass Housing has 625 properties in the Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter shires and 26 properties in Singleton LGA.

“The beautiful staff members at Muswellbrook are second to none. They can’t do enough for their tenants and they show much empathy and respect,” Eryn said.

It seems it’s an attitude that flows down from the top. In Compass Housing group managing director, Greg Budworth’s words, the tenants are not just consumers but contributors.

“Compass strongly represents the basic human right to adequate housing,” Mr Budworth said.

“We are what I call socially regenerative tenant managers.

“We’re not just a nice landlord, we bring our clients on a journey with us.”

Eryn was lucky to have been found a place after three weeks.

Mr Budworth said there were 60,000 to 100,000 people desperate to get into social housing, including a mother he had spoken to recently who was sleeping in her car with her child.

“Human settlement is a human right,” he said simply.

Under Mr Budworth’s leadership, Compass Housing has grown to be an international community housing provider which manages about 4600 properties and houses almost 10,000 people. 

He is a true leader and has been recognised recently with the Outstanding Achievement Award for an individual at the Australasian Housing Institute's Awards and in August was named Hunter Business Leader of the Year in the 2017 Hunter Business Awards. Compass Housing was also named Business of the Year.

He was proud to note that Compass tenants had recently banded together to form the group Tenants for Vanuatu and raised over $5000 for cyclone victims.

“We want tenants to see themselves as contributors and that money has gone towards building two facilities including a community centre which opened last week,” he said. 

“That’s no small feat.”