While doing work experience in Melbourne's large homeless shelters in the 1980s, Bryan was angered by the squalid conditions and refusal of so-called ‘charitable’ organisations to accept older homeless people into their aged care services. He vowed to improve the situation and in 1989 founded Wintringham, a not-for-profit public company that provides a wide range of services to the elderly homeless. For the first 2 years he was the only employee. The vision at the start was simple - the company would be a social justice organisation that would care for older homeless people whom the aged care industry had turned its back on.
Bryan believes older homeless people have a right to decent aged care services and housing simply because they are Australian citizens. Importantly, he also decided at the outset that it would be a single focus company. Today, Wintringham has facilities in the CBD, Flemington, Kensington and throughout the suburbs and regional Victoria, employs over 650 people and cares for more than 2000 people every night.
Under Bryan’s leadership, Wintringham has obtained substantial funding and support to enable the establishment of a range of housing and services to many aged people who were living in poor and insecure conditions. The main source of Wintringham's funding is the Australian Government with additional programs funded by the Victorian Government, along with the generosity of a number of philanthropic trusts for capital projects. His ability to develop and implement high quality services that are financially viable, has influenced government policy and in turn encouraged welfare agencies towards providing a more coordinated response to a group of people who are some of the most disadvantaged within Australian society.
Along the way, Wintringham have built unashamedly beautiful buildings. Reversing a world-wide tradition that expected homeless people to accept ugly and institutional buildings that reinforced negative images of disempowered people, Wintringham has consciously set out to create beautiful environments that are enjoyable to live and work within. Their buildings have won numerous awards – in 1998, Port Melbourne Hostel was the first Australian building to win the prestigious United Nations World Habitat Award.
Then in 2011, the United Nations announced that Wintringham had won the Habitat Scroll of Honour – the most prestigious human settlements award in the world for outstanding contributions towards human settlements development by individuals, organisations and successful projects - and the first time this award has gone to Australia.
In 2018, Wintringham was announced as the HESTA Australian Aged Care Organisation of the year, recognised for contributing to the social justice of ageing Australians experiencing homelessness, through community outreach, housing support, housing, aged care and referral services.
Bryan is a regular contributor to a range of local and international aged care, homelessness and housing forums, and is the author of a book 'The Elderly Homeless', which looks at the international provision of services to frail homeless men and women. He is a past President of the Community Housing Federation of Victoria.
Bryan received the Order of Australia (AM) in 1999 for his work with the elderly homeless. He was acknowledged as a Distinguished Alumni of La Trobe University in 2009. In 2013, author Elaine Farrelly released a book, The Wintringham Story, telling Bryan’s story.
Prior to Wintringham, Melbourne was like lots of other major cities around the world. It was usual to see old homeless men and women on the streets. These days, that is unusual in Melbourne.
We still have homeless people, but comparatively few of them are older folk. Older people with a lived experience of homelessness are now supported in housing and aged care facilities services provided by Wintringham – happy, handsome places where laughter and camaraderie are commonplace. To a large degree, that wonderful change has happened because of Bryan Lipmann.