Homeless

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GUEST OBSERVER
On August 9, most of the Australian population will complete the 2016 Census of Population and Housing. Census night comes less than a week after national Homelessness Week, which aims to raise awareness of the plight of homeless people. With that in mind, the week’s theme this year is “Homelessness Counts”.
While homelessness does count in that most people share concern about its rising incidence and societal impact, a perplexing issue is how to count the people who are homeless. It is essential that the information collected accurately reflects the true extent of homelessness in Australia. Reliable data about the homeless population is vital when developing policy, allocating funding and developing services for vulnerable people.
At the previous 2011 Census, 105,000 people were homeless. That was an increase of 17 percent from the 2006 Census. Anecdotal evidence suggests the number of homeless people – in particular the very old and the very young – is still increasing.
ShelterWA notes the majority of people become homeless due to financial and emotional reasons. The biggest cause of homelessness is family and domestic violence (25 percent), followed by financial difficulties (16 percent). Mental illness and addiction issues can play a role.
Most people experiencing homelessness have lived “normal” lives. They become homeless after a life crisis such as a job loss, illness or marital breakdown.
<h2>When is a person defined as homeless?</h2>
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), when a person does not have suitable accommodation alternatives they are considered homeless if their living arrangement:
<ul>
<li>
is in a dwelling that is inadequate; or
</li>
<li>
has no tenure, or their initial tenure is short and not extendable; or
</li>
<li>
does not allow them to have control of and access to space for social relations.
</li>
</ul>
This definition is much broader than commonly held perceptions of homelessness. While obviously the term covers the archetypal person “sleeping rough”, homelessness refers to a variety of precarious housing circumstances. This includes:
<ul>
<li>
people living in hostels and refuges;
</li>
<li>
people without a usual address – for example, “couch surfing” or staying with friends; and
</li>
<li>
those living in a single room without a kitchen or bathroom of its own.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>How do we ensure homeless people are counted?</h2>
Even armed with the ABS definition, the next issue for the census is how to identify and locate people experiencing homelessness.
<h4>Identification is an issue for several reasons. These include:</h4>
<ul>
<li>
it is not obvious that people who are couch-surfing are not living permanently on the premises;
</li>
<li>
people may not self-identify or feel comfortable about elaborating on their circumstances;
</li>
<li>
as they have a roof over their heads, such as in a hostel, people may not realise they are regarded as homeless.
</li>
</ul>
Locating people is another issue. This is especially challenging in the case of those sleeping rough.
Furthermore, homelessness is an issue in rural and regional areas as well as in cities. Resources are limited and, as 2016 Census data director Sue Taylor has noted: "we have to know they are there to be able to go and count them."
<h2>So what is being done about this?</h2>
Efforts are already being made to obtain quantitative data on homelessness, particularly in the major capital cities.
Unlike the census, which occurs every five years, Registry Week takes place annually and uses the methodology developed by Common Ground in the US. Using a specific survey tool called the Vulnerability Index, trained volunteers work in teams to conduct early morning surveys of people who are sleeping rough.
The methodology promotes a targeted approach with a view to moving the vulnerable homeless people into long-term housing. The strategy is effective in raising awareness of homelessness issues and informing agencies of trends.
It is, however, difficult to target everybody. For a start, some people simply do not want to be found or participate. Although this approach provides valuable information about city areas, there are not enough volunteers in rural and regional areas to assess the issue adequately.
The ABS will adopt a similar approach to the census by employing field officers to seek out homeless people. They will take direction from homelessness service providers.
These providers will help to identify likely locations occupied by people experiencing homelessness and to locate boarding houses, refuges and hostels. Obviously, the field officers have received training or are already experienced in dealing with vulnerable people.
The census form includes a question: “Where does the person usually live?” People who have no usual address are encouraged to enter “None” for the suburb part of the question, regardless of where they are staying on census night, even if they are couch-surfing or staying in other temporary accommodation.
Those using supported accommodation vouchers or brokerage services to stay in caravan parks and motels should record “None – crisis” on the census form.
<h2>On the verge of homelessness</h2>
On a related note, the census is expected to glean information about people experiencing housing stress.
On Monday, Homelessness Australia chair Jenny Smith noted that one in ten Australian households are in housing stress and at risk of homelessness. That is 850,000 people on the lowest 40% of incomes. This inescapable link must be factored into any analysis of the homelessness statistics.
Although the ABS is trying to identify as many people experiencing homelessness as possible, the figures are likely to underestimate the true extent of the issue. Unfortunately, a gap will remain between what providers know is happening “on the ground” and the statistics garnered through the census and channelled through to government.
Until a more expansive approach can be developed – and adequate resources provided for analysis of the results – the census’ pursuit of the homeless demographic will be akin to ghost-hunting.
Eileen Webb is associate professor, Curtin Law School, Curtin University and author for The Conversation. She can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/eileen-webb-95332" target="_blank">here</a>.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Ghost-hunting: will the census reveal the true scale of homelessness in Australia?

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/57114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">GUEST OBSERVER
New findings from the Cost of Youth Homelessness in Australia research project, released on Thursday, show the rising costs of health and justice services associated with homelessness.
The homeless young people in the study reported significantly higher prevalence of adverse health issues than the general population, or even compared to other unemployed, job-seeking youth. This created an average additional cost, compared to the unemployed group, of A$6,744 per person per year.
Homelessness also means considerably greater contact with and involvement in the justice system. This was an average cost of $8,242 higher than for the unemployed group. The total cost offsets for young people becoming homeless is therefore an average of $14,986 per person per year.
On the basis of the 41,780 young people between aged 15 and 24 who were clients of Specialist Homelessness Services in 2014-15 and presented alone rather than in a family group, the total annual cost to the Australian economy of additional health and justice services is an estimated $747 million – or $626 million annually more than for unemployed youth.
This $747 million exceeds the total cost – approximately $619 million – of providing Specialist Homelessness Services to the 256,000 people (young and old) assisted by the system over the same period.
Has ‘early intervention’ influenced policy?
Early intervention to arrest the onset of youth homelessness is not a new idea.
Debate about early intervention started in the 1990s following several research projects that proffered evidence that it was possible:
• it was advocated in a parliamentary report on youth homelessness in 1995; • it was examined by a government taskforce in 1996-97; and • after a pilot program, the first early intervention program for at-risk and homeless young people, Reconnect, was launched.
But apart from Reconnect, little has been done to develop Australia’s early intervention capacity. This is despite “youth homelessness” having had a visible profile in the media and in public debate. This is undoubtedly in large part due to the 1989 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission inquiry into youth homelessness.
Twenty-five years later, an independent National Youth Commission Inquiry into Youth Homelessness revisited the same issue in much the same way. It found the problem had not been substantially redressed.
In December 2008, a federal government white paper placed “early intervention” on the policy agenda as a means of “turning off the tap”. But little was done in six years of Labor governments.
And, despite a roundtable on prevention and early intervention convened in 2014 by then-social services minister Kevin Andrews, the Abbott and Turnbull governments have done nothing to give effect to the framework so positively received.
Specialist Homelessness Services assisted 250,000 men, women and children in 2013-14. Nearly one-third (30 percent) were single individuals. Another one-third were sole parents with children (33 percent). Just less than one-third were other families (29 percent). The balance consisted of “other groups” of non-related persons (7 percent).
In 2013-14, of the 76,200 individuals who were alone when they presented to services, 44,414 were young people aged 15-24 years – or nearly six out of every ten single clients.
Widening the debate
The debate about responding to homelessness has too often been confined to claims about increasing homelessness services or reforming homelessness services. The overall costs and benefits are not considered. The huge demand-driven costs associated with young people becoming homeless are not factored in.
Policies that respond to homelessness in ways that avoid these costs have to be more seriously considered. Our report’s findings provide a strong economic rationale for investing in early intervention to stem the flow of young people into homelessness.
And for those young people who become homeless despite early intervention – or who were already living independently prior to homelessness – the policy imperative is to support them to exit homelessness as quickly as possible.
For these young people, this involves setting them up in safe, secure and appropriate housing quickly – or rapid rehousing.
A rapid and agile response has proved difficult to deliver because it requires quick access to some form of appropriate youth housing.
The most important issue is wrap-around integrated support for young people to remain in education, training or employment as a way of replicating – as well as can be achieved – the all-inclusive support that families provide.
Waiting for early intervention and an adequate response to youth homelessness feels like “waiting for Godot”, as the two homeless men did in Samuel Beckett’s famous absurdist play. But, as the findings of our research show, the Australian community and economy are paying the substantial cost of the status quo.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/adam-steen-249616" rel="author">Adam Steen</a> is professor in finance, Charles Sturt University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/adam-steen-249616" target="_blank">here</a>.
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New homelessness report shows the cost of waiting for early intervention

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GUEST OBSERVERS
Homelessness continues to be a contentious issue in Australia. Earlier this year, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton asserted:
There’s no reason people should be sleeping on the street, there are no reasons people should be homeless … There’s more than enough beds and accommodation for people to access.
Aside from the question of whether these claims are correct, homelessness is not as easily resolved as just giving people a bed and roof over their head. For a start, it is not just people sleeping on the street who are considered homeless. People using various forms of marginal and insecure accommodation legitimately lay claim to that label.
Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics definition, people who do not have suitable accommodation alternatives are considered homeless when:
they live in dwellings that are inadequate;
they do not have stable tenure; or
they do not have control over, or full access to, space for social relations.
Looking at this definition, it becomes clear that determining whether someone is homeless or not is not straightforward. By this definition, giving someone a bed in a shelter is not sufficient to resolve their homelessness. What’s more, we have long known that people sleep rough because they feel safer on the street than in some homeless accommodation.
How do people see themselves?
Even though these points are increasingly being recognised, what these debates neglect is that the “homeless” person’s perceptions of their situation might be just as important as how others classify them.
Do they feel they are homeless when they sleep on the street? Do they consider that they are no longer homeless when they have a bed in a shelter? And, importantly, do they even describe their situation as homelessness?
We examined this question in a large-scale research project with the Salvation Army. We started by exploring how many people who were staying in crisis homeless accommodation would see themselves as a “homeless person”.
We found that 55% of people staying in homeless accommodation provided by The Salvation Army identified as “homeless”, and 31% rejected that label.
14% were ambivalent about categorising themselves as “homeless” – they neither fully accepted nor rejected the label. For example, they said they were “not 100% homeless” or that even though they might “technically” be classed as homeless, they did not see that as an accurate way to describe their situation.
The reasons people gave for their responses reflected the complex and varied nature of what is meant by “home”. Some saw themselves as homeless because they did not have the stability, security or privacy bound up in our Western notion of home. As one woman put it:
… at the end of the day there’s a time limit on my stay and that’s not what I would class as stable, safe accommodation.
For others, their shelter accommodation did represent stability and security. As one male participant explained:
To me, homeless is on the street. This is a hostel, it’s a refuge, it’s a roof over your head, a shower, food, so I wouldn’t say I was homeless. I’ve got somewhere to go every day to sleep, so I wouldn’t say I’m homeless.
Others simply said the shelter felt like a home. It thus appears that not everyone who meets official definitions of being homeless defines themselves as such.
Labels affect people’s wellbeing
So, what’s in a name? When it comes to homelessness, the answer may be of considerable importance.
In our research, we found that the wellbeing of people who refused to define themselves as “homeless” was significantly higher than the wellbeing of those who had adopted the label to describe themselves.
Somewhat surprisingly, people who had experienced chronic homelessness in the past were no more or less likely to self-categorise as homeless than people who had few or no previous homeless experiences.
How people saw themselves also had no impact on their use of the services. Participants who rejected or were ambivalent about the homeless label reported rates of use similar to those who accepted the label.
It thus appears that when it comes to mental health, when we adopt a label to describe ourselves, we start to think and act in ways that align with the stereotypes of that label.
In this case, despite the diversity of experiences of homelessness, those who accept the homeless label internalise the rejection and even dehumanisation that homeless people experience from mainstream society. This is associated with significant social and emotional costs.
What are the lessons for service providers?
Given the importance of self-definitions for mental health and wellbeing, understanding how people see themselves has important policy implications.
Our research shows that not everyone who needs crisis accommodation defines themselves as a homeless person. However, individuals must typically self-identify as such to gain entry to homeless services.
This means these people are required to adopt a view of themselves that is in and of itself associated with negative wellbeing outcomes. There is a need for housing and supported accommodation that does not put pressure on people to identify as homeless and thus to carry the baggage associated with that label.
Fundamental needs, such as a need for housing, should not be tied with categories and identities that assume who someone is and what they are perceived to lack.
The Salvation Army has taken these insights further and translated them into practice principles. These take as a starting point that, in delivering services, it is important to avoid seeing people through the lens of their current and past housing challenges.
Concretely, this has, for instance, led to changes in the use of spaces. In several shelters, the Salvation Army have removed physical barriers between staff and residents and created more independent living space. The idea is that by undermining categories of “service staff” versus “service users” the homeless label will become a less prominent way for the latter group to categorise themselves. This should in itself be empowering for residents.
Other changes to service delivery are not as tangible, but are equally important. The language the Salvation Army uses has changed significantly, with the aim of treating people as active agents of their life and members of society, rather than passive recipients of services.
These changes in practice are subtle and not easily described, but they represent a significant change in the ethos of the service. For example, services no longer use terms such as “homeless people” as the main way of referring to people using the services.
These ideals reflect a broader change in how homeless services are provided to people. Homelessness accommodation providers, social service providers and governments must ensure the language they use and, importantly, the language and labels applied to people using services do not assume that needing assistance is a defining trait of the individual.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/zoe-walter-317874" target="_blank">Zoe Walter</a> is postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/cameron-parsell-170758" target="_blank">Cameron Parsell</a> is research fellow, The University of Queensland.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/genevieve-dingle-186222" target="_blank">Genevieve Dingle</a> is lecturer in Clinical Psychology and Director of the UQ Psychology Clinic, The University of Queensland.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jolanda-jetten-301309" target="_blank">Jolanda Jetten</a> is professor of Social Psychology, The University of Queensland.
All are authors for The Conversation.
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What’s in the name ‘homeless’? How people see themselves and the labels we apply matter

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GUEST OBSERVER
I’m deeply concerned by how many people are sleeping rough or homeless in our city.
It's not illegal for people to be homeless – for some people it’s an inevitable consequence of the housing affordability crisis in Sydney.
The City’s doing more than any other local government in the country.
Specialist homelessness services funded by the City helped more than 320 people access housing with support and prevented more than 450 people from becoming homeless last year.
But virtually all the levers of power and responsibility lie with the state government.
What we’re seeing in Martin Place is the direct consequence of decades of gutless inaction from successive State Governments.
Instead of investing in more social housing in our area, they’ve kicked people out of their homes and sold them to the highest bidder.
City staff are actively working to keep Martin Place safe and clean but we have no power to forcibly move people on – only the Police can do that.
But even if the Police were directed to do that, where does the Minister expect people to go? Putting them up in hotels for three or four nights is not an answer.
The fact is you can’t solve homelessness without housing – we need long term solutions and we urgently need the NSW Government to step up and do their bit.
Here’s three practical things the Minister and Government could do today:
<ul>
<li>Open Sirius and move people in – 77 homes are currently sitting empty in a building purpose built for social housing. This would immediately resolve the issue in Martin Place;</li>
<li>Support our proposal for funding for a second Common Ground development in the city – our proposal together with Mission Australia Housing and Macquarie Corporate Holdings would create 150 new affordable and social housing unit with 50 specifically designed for vulnerable homeless people; and</li>
<li>Allow the City to extend the affordable housing levy across our area.</li>
</ul>
Levies are an effective &amp; financially feasible way to deliver affordable housing units but the City is currently only allowed a levy in Green Square (which has delivered 106 units) and in Ultimo/Pyrmont (which has delivered 445 units).
If the State Labor Government in 2009 had approved our request to extend the levy it would have funded an estimated 2000 additional affordable units by now.
Our works shows that extending the levy now could deliver up to 2000+ new affordable units across our area.
Over the next three years, the City will invest $6.6 million on homeless services which includes $3.5 million for the State Government’s Family and Community Services agency to help them do their work in Martin Place and other areas.
Clover Moore is Lord Mayor of Sydney.
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Homelessness an inevitable consequence of the housing affordability crisis: Clover Moore

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GUEST OBSERVATION
"What’s incredible when you look at those numbers is about 30% - it’s hard to tell often - about 30% of those homeless people have a job."
– Rebecca Huntley, social researcher and author, speaking on Q&amp;A, April 23, 2018
Inequality, class and social mobility in Australia were key issues discussed on a recent episode of Q&amp;A.
Social researcher and author Rebecca Huntley noted an uptick in the idea of “the undeserving poor” in Australia – particularly where homeless people are concerned.
Huntley noted the perception held by some that homeless Australians are simply “not working hard enough”.
Challenging that narrative, Huntley said “about 30% of those homeless people have a job”.
Is that right?
Checking the source
In response to The Conversation’s request for sources, Huntley provided data from the <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2049.0" target="_blank">Census of Population and Housing: Estimating homelessness, 2016</a> report, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in March 2018.
Huntley also pointed to the article: “<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2018/04/21/the-rise-homelessness-and-hunger/15242328006116" target="_blank">The rise of homelessness and hunger</a>”, written by Mike Seccombe and published in The Saturday Paper, and the website of “<a href="http://www.nhc.edu.au/sessions/everybodys-home-a-national-housing-campaign/" target="_blank">Everybody’s Home – A National Housing Campaign</a>”.
Huntley added:
"The <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/PrimaryMainFeatures/2049.0?OpenDocument" target="_blank">definition of homelessness</a> in the Census is probably broader than community perceptions about homelessness – that is, that all homeless people are sleeping rough on the streets.
"People who are couch surfing or living in their car or living in overcrowded accommodation may well fit into this definition. They may also be working in the gig economy or getting work here and there (the double whammy of insecure work and insecure housing is quite terrible).
"What the Census 2016 data show is that there are people with post compulsory education, with various levels of work and hours worked across all categories of people living in insecure housing arrangements."
Verdict
Based on the best available data, Rebecca Huntley’s statement that “about 30% of … homeless people have a job” is correct.
According to Census 2016 data, about 30% of people who were recorded as being homeless on Census night (using the Australian Bureau of Statistics definition of homeless) were also recorded as being in the work force.
What does it mean to be ‘homeless’?
When we talk about “homelessness”, many of us would think about people “sleeping rough” on the street. This is arguably the most severe and literal form of homelessness. But the state of being homeless is more complex than that.
Under the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/2049.0Appendix12016?opendocument&amp;tabname=Notes&amp;prodno=2049.0&amp;issue=2016&amp;num=&amp;view=" target="_blank">definition</a>, a person can be considered homeless if their current living arrangement:
<ul>
<li>is in a dwelling that is inadequate</li>
<li>has no tenure, or if their initial tenure is short and not extendable, or</li>
<li>does not allow them to have control of, and access to space for social relations.</li>
</ul>
The ABS presents its estimates of homelessness using these groupings:
<ul>
<li>People living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out</li>
<li>People in supported accommodation for the homeless</li>
<li>People staying temporarily with other households</li>
<li>People living in boarding houses</li>
<li>People in other temporary lodgings, and</li>
<li>People living in “severely” crowded dwellings.</li>
</ul>
On the night of the 2016 Census, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2049.0Explanatory%20Notes12016?OpenDocument" target="_blank">more than 116,000 people</a> were counted as being homeless. This includes both children and adults. The estimates of the employment rate include only those age 15 and over.
This may be a conservative count, because some groups of people may be underenumerated (under counted) in the Census.
For example, the ABS <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2049.0Explanatory%20Notes12016?OpenDocument" target="_blank">notes</a> that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ are “more likely to be both underenumerated and over represented in the homeless population”, and that:
"So called rough sleepers and people staying in supported accommodation for the homeless are also at risk of being underenumerated in the Census."
What constitutes ‘a job’?
In the Census data, people are counted as being employed if they are of working age (age 15 and over) and:
<ul>
<li>employed and working full-time</li>
<li>employed and working part-time, and/or</li>
<li>employed but away from work.</li>
</ul>
However, not all people age 15 and over who were experiencing homelessness were counted in the Census labour force statistics. For some people, no information was recorded.
Known employment rates for homeless people
If we calculate the known employment rate for homeless people (using the ABS definition of homelessness outlined above), we find that around 30% are employed, as Rebecca Huntley said on Q&amp;A.
But the employment rate among homeless people could be higher.
That’s because we don’t have employment information for all homeless people. In the Census statistics, there are large numbers of people for whom information on employment status is missing, or not stated.
Overall, we don’t have records of the employment status of about 18% of the total homeless population.
Also, many people experiencing homelessness could be in situations where they wouldn’t be expected to work. For example, full-time students or the elderly.
This makes 30% likely to be the lower bound.
If we assume that the employment rate of those with missing information is the same as those with recorded information, the employment rate would increase to 36%. If we also excluded full-time students and the elderly from these statistics, the rate would be even higher.
Employment rate for people ‘sleeping rough’
“Sleeping rough”, or sleeping on the street, is arguably the most severe form of homelessness.
People sleeping rough are the group with the highest proportion of missing information on labour force status. The known employment rate for people sleeping rough is 10%.
If about half of the people with missing information were employed, the rate would go up to 30%. My assumption for this group is that most of those people with missing information are not employed.
So for those sleeping rough, the employment rate is probably closer to 10-15%.
The employment rate for people in supported accommodation is also likely to be around 10-15%. These two groups are those usually considered when a more literal definition of homelessness is used.
But as outlined in this FactCheck, the state of being “homeless” is more complex and wide ranging than that.
‘Journeys Home’ survey
Another useful data set on homelessness and employment is the Melbourne Institute’s <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/property-observer" target="_blank">Journeys Home</a> survey, of which I was the Deputy Director.
This longitudinal survey, which began in 2011 and concluded in 2014, included 1,682 people in Australia flagged by Centrelink as either “homeless” or “at-risk of homelessness”.
The survey also included a group of income support recipients who were not flagged as homeless, but who had characteristics similar to those who had been homeless.
The overall rate of employment among all respondents was 27%. Of those who were homeless, 19% were employed.
In our study, however, we did not include those in overcrowded accommodation as being homeless. (These people are identified as being homeless in the Census).
This highlights the importance of the definition of “homelessness” used when considering the characteristics of the homeless population.
It’s also important to remember that just because someone isn’t employed doesn’t mean they don’t want to be employed, or aren’t seeking employment. Being homeless is a significant barrier to gaining – and retaining – a job.
Blind review
I agree with the verdict of this FactCheck that the overall rate of employment among people experiencing or being at-risk of homelessness is in the vicinity of 30%.
I would add that findings from <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-grim-cycle-of-homelessness-and-unemployment" target="_blank">my research</a> using the Journeys Home data reveal that homelessness is more strongly associated with difficulty in retaining employment than with finding employment. – Neha Swami
Rosanna Scutella, Senior Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-do-about-30-of-homeless-people-have-a-job-95514" target="_blank">original article</a>.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162128/original/image-20170323-13486-72k52f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
The Conversation FactCheck is accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network.
 
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j.ballantyne1990-6AQqhLzZaK

Do 'about 30% of homeless people have a job'?

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GUEST OBSERVATION
Exactly a decade ago in 2008, the Australian government committed to an ambitious strategy to halve national homelessness by 2020. Through stepped-up early intervention, better homelessness services and an expanded supply of affordable housing, the problem would be tackled with conviction. Instead, as succeeding governments regrettably abandoned the 2008 strategy, homelessness in Australia has been on the rise.
Last week’s federal budget offered no response to this concern. And the problem is fast getting worse, as highlighted in our new Australian Homelessness Monitor, prepared for independent community organisation Launch Housing. Emulating a respected UK annual monitoring project, this report is a comprehensive national analysis of the state of homelessness in Australia together with the potential policy, economic and social drivers of the trends across the country.
Recently published 2016 Census statistics showed a 14% increase in overall homelessness in Australia since 2011. That’s well ahead of the nation’s population growth rate.
Our major cities have seen much larger rises in homelessness. Recent increases have been especially big in Sydney (up 48% since 2011), Darwin (up 36%) and Brisbane (up 32%).
Concerningly, the numbers of people sleeping rough have been growing particularly fast. This, the most visible and extreme form of homelessness, grew nationally by 20% over the 2011-2016 period.
Although offset by periodic rehousing initiatives for long-term street homeless, five-year increases in the municipalities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide have exceeded the national trend. This was especially true in Melbourne. The 2016 City of Melbourne count showed numbers jumped by more than 200% over this period.
Why are the numbers soaring?
As our report this year highlights, many policies, or policy failures, are implicated in these trends. These include:
<ul>
<li>
social security system changes, such as shifting welfare benefit recipients onto lower payments with more conditions of eligibility, and increased “sanctioning” of claimants
</li>
<li>
incremental long-term impacts of inadequate welfare indexation, which have increasingly eroded the ability of lower-income Australians to afford decent housing
</li>
<li>
criminal justice policies that are increasing the prison population, which leads to a rising rate of prison discharge – a moment when the risk of homelessness is high.
</li>
</ul>
Such developments are critical in a housing market where, by international standards, subsidised social housing provision is minimal. This means the vast majority of Australia’s lower-income population must depend on an increasingly stressed private rental sector in which the stock of low-cost homes is dwindling.
Partly as a result, ABS statistics cited in our report show the proportion of low-income tenants in rental stress has risen from 35% to 44% over the past decade nationally. In New South Wales, it has risen from 43% to 51%. In Victoria, the figure rose from 32% to 47% over the decade.
The geographical pattern of recent homeless changes shows the housing market is driving these changes. Our report finds increases in homelessness have generally been much more rapid in capital cities. Non-metropolitan areas have recorded much lower growth rates, or even reductions.
In another pointer to housing market impacts, increases in homelessness have tended to be higher in the large eastern states. These are the states where economies and property markets have been relatively strong over the past few years. In South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia, where these factors have been less evident, the rate of homeless growth has been lower.
So, overall numbers were up by 53% in inner Sydney (2011-2016), but rose by a more modest 21% in Hobart. In contrast, homeless numbers fell by over 30% in remote South Australia and Western Australia.
Governments have let this happen
Despite these stark trends, recent Australian governments, while footing the bill for homelessness services rising well ahead of inflation, have presided over cuts in social and affordable housing.
In its 2014 budget, the Abbott government cancelled the National Rental Affordability Scheme. This was Australia’s last national affordable housing construction program.
An increasingly underfunded social and affordable housing system leads to a burgeoning homelessness support system. The cost of emergency services for those lacking homes has risen by 29% in real terms over the past four years. On its current path, the cost is set to exceed A$1 billion by 2020.
Meanwhile, in the face of deteriorating public housing stock and intensifying shortage, social housing investment by state and territory governments has actually fallen by 7% since 2012-13.
Five years ago, prior to the 2013 federal election, then opposition spokeswoman on housing Marise Payne said “the Coalition’s homelessness plan” was “to abolish the carbon tax, pay down Labor’s debt, generate one million jobs in the next five years and increase our collective wealth so all of us – individuals and charities – have the capacity to help the homeless and those most in need in areas where government is not always the answer”.
While placing faith in philanthropy, such sentiment is underpinned by a stubborn belief that we can rely on market forces to provide suitable and affordable housing for disadvantaged Australians – just as much as for all other citizens. It is clear from the latest statistics that the official approach moulded by this thinking has failed.
What needs to be done?
Looking to the future, the ongoing restructuring of private rental markets seems likely to keep pushing up the numbers of people subject to housing insecurity. The availability of affordable low-rent housing continues to contract.
For any realistic chance of progress, the Australian government needs to reconfirm recognition of homelessness as a social ill that must not be ignored. It needs to re-engage with the problem, starting with a coherent strategic vision to reduce the scale of homelessness by a measurable amount within a defined period. And it needs to recommit to a level of government support that ensures enough social and affordable housing is provided to keep pace with growing need, at the very least.
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95376/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">Disappointingly, the federal budget provided no indication that such developments are in prospect. Yet squarely tackling Australia’s growing homelessness problem demands recognition that excluding people from safe, secure and affordable housing is effectively a denial of citizenship.
Hal Pawson, Associate Director - City Futures - Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW
Cameron Parsell, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/homelessness-australias-shameful-story-of-policy-complacency-and-failure-continues-95376" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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Homelessness: Australia's shameful story of policy complacency and failure continues

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GUEST OBSERVATION
Revitalisation projects aimed at increasing residential populations in inner urban areas since the 1980s have resulted in almost wholesale expulsion of the marginally housed. The now mythic “doughnut city” that Melbournians became so embarrassed about, and so proud to repopulate, was in fact a city that housed its homeless.
The critic John Berger observed: "The 20th-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing."
We might ponder his concern in the Australian city today where the homeless have never been more visible and yet so ignored in mainstream urban discussion.
Infrastructure Australia’s recent report, Future Cities: Planning for our growing population, doesn’t mention homelessness once. This is sadly typical of major urban policy statements in the past few decades, many of which have championed inner-city renewal.
From doughnut city to cafe society
Melbourne, like most Western cities, experienced population decline in its core from the 1960s as relentless suburbanisation drew population outwards.
In 1977, the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works chairman, Alan Croxford, lamented: "Melbourne’s trend towards a ‘doughnut’ type of development is revealing the first signs of serious problems experienced in other cities of the world."
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212173/original/file-20180327-109193-1ujvgrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212173/original/file-20180327-109193-1ujvgrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
The Department of Infrastructure’s 1998 report, From Doughnut City to Café Society. Author provided
Similarly, Jan Ghel describes Melbourne in the 1970s as a “neutron-bombed” city. The architectural commentator Norman Day portrayed it as “an empty useless city centre”.
The “doughnut” trope certainly stuck in the planning imagination. Urban strategies and programs in the 1990s were decidedly aimed at reintroducing a residential population and revitalising the city centre.
The Postcode 3000 program and the Keys to the City campaign were a resounding success. Residential accommodation in central Melbourne increased from 738 units in the 1980s to 9,895 units by 2002. The figure today is nearly 30,000 units.
This renaissance has been retailed and celebrated globally. It is, however, partial truth. The uplift was certainly not felt by all.
Melbourne when relief was cheap
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212174/original/file-20180327-109193-p7cbuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="">
Gordon House Lodgings in Little Bourke Street, in the late 1960s, had about 500 beds. Alan Jordan/State Library of Victoria
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212175/original/file-20180327-109182-cj27t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212175/original/file-20180327-109182-cj27t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Relocated to Lorimer Street, Gordon House had about 300 beds. Graeme Butler, 1982
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212179/original/file-20180327-109182-9nqpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212179/original/file-20180327-109182-9nqpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Aerial view of Gordon House on South Wharf, 1979. Wolfgang Sievers/National Library of Australia
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214444/original/file-20180412-549-19unoty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214444/original/file-20180412-549-19unoty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Aerial view of South Wharf showing the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, built in 1996, located where Gordon House used to be. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/popcorncx/155407300/" target="_blank">Stephen Edmonds/Flickr</a>, <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="_blank">CC BY-SA</a>
The “doughnut city” in fact offered cheap accommodation for the marginal and homeless. This included night shelters, rooming houses, private residential hotels, and crisis accommodation.
Gauging the exact number of low-cost beds in the inner city at this time is difficult. Homeless population estimates and reported losses in crisis and transitional housing during this period give us some idea.
Alan Jordan’s seminal work on Melbourne’s inner-city homeless population in 1973 noted: “… at any given time in the period there were at least 3,000 and probably 4,000 homeless men within two or three miles of the centre of Melbourne who were currently using night shelters, lodging houses and handouts”.
A 1984 report on the City of Melbourne and its homeless indicated that about 3,700 rooming house rooms were available for rent. These housed an estimated 4,500 people.
In 1990, a report by the Council for Homeless Persons and the Victorian Council of Churches estimated that each night, within 5 kilometres of the GPO, there were 4,000 people in large rooming houses and private hotels, 930 in crisis accommodation, and 530 in squats and sleeping rough. The report estimated that rooming house stock had shrunk by 48% in the seven years from 1981 to 1988.
The erosion of low-cost accommodation in the 1980s and ’90s made way for the repopulation of inner Melbourne. A 1998 study on rough sleeping commissioned by the City of Melbourne reported an overall reduction of 78% in short-term housing stock between 1987 and 1997. This amounted to the loss of 1,400 crisis accommodation and low-cost hotel beds.
This transitional housing was hardly ideal, but its loss deprived homeless people of temporary shelter and no doubt contributed to burgeoning numbers of rough sleepers. It also signifies that Melbourne’s “doughnut city” was never entirely hollowed out. It offered relief to, and was occupied by, the homeless.
More homeless, more visible
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212180/original/file-20180327-109196-1pxizul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212180/original/file-20180327-109196-1pxizul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Remnants of Melbourne’s Skid Row: Three private hotels on the corner of Spencer and Flinders streets had about 268 low-cost rooms, early 1980s. Public Record Office Victoria<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212182/original/file-20180327-109193-18z8gq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212182/original/file-20180327-109193-18z8gq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Sir Charles Hotham Hotel on Skid Row, which sold last year for a speculated $30 million. Melbourne History Workshop
Recently released 2016 Census results estimate about 116,000 people are homeless on any given night in Australia. Rough sleepers represent just 7% of the homeless population, but are increasingly visible in Australian cities.
In Melbourne, the increasing visibility of homelessness sits jarringly alongside its growing prestige as a thriving, culturally diverse and vibrant city. Being crowned the world’s “most liveable city” seven years in a row has helped to resurrect the narrative of “Marvellous Melbourne”.
Significant work has been done over this time to provide specialist homelessness services and support in the inner city. But accompanying low-cost accommodation to house the users of these services has become ever more residual. With about 36,000 applicants on the social housing register, and very little increase in supply, the demand for crisis and transitional accommodation is mounting.
Urban renaissance, a mixed tale
Urban redevelopment and displacement are intertwined trends familiar to many cities around the world. As with Melbourne, these revitalisation stories are often partial accounts, which smother more subjugated histories of a city.
By celebrating the demise of a doughnut city and its replacement by a superior café society, “liveable Melbourne” overlooks the vast dispersal that made way for a residential population that reinforces the commercial prospects of the city. The previous, more marginal city dwellers are simply abandoned. Versions of this are recurring today.
None of this is to wish a return to the past but to remind us of what can be lost in contemporary urban narratives – in this case Melbourne’s history of homeless occupation and subsequent displacement.
To heed Berger, the swelling of homelessness should remind us of the property dysfunction and spatial injustice that underlie our cities’ seeming prosperity. We can celebrate successes, but must also concede that urban renaissance is often a mixed tale of blinding optimism for the elite and cruel loss for the poor. Planning for future cities ought to take more care.
Claire Collie, PhD candidate in Urban Planning, University of Melbourne
Brendan Gleeson, Director, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/melbournes-doughnut-city-housed-its-homeless-93062" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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The story of how Melbourne’s ‘doughnut city’ housed its homeless

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Staying home and social distancing are now essential to control the spread of COVID-19. Suitable accommodation for quarantine and isolation are critical, but Australia’s broken housing system leaves us all exposed.
By now, almost every Australian will have thought about the coronavirus pandemic in terms of their own housing. For many home owners, this is an economic concern. They are <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/sydneysiders-mortgage-debt-30-per-cent-higher-than-national-average-20200215-p5412l" target="_blank">dangerously in debt</a> after a 20-year housing boom. Renters face <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-housing-evictions-must-be-suspended-to-defend-us-against-coronavirus-134148" target="_blank">greater uncertainty</a>.
But it’s people in overcrowded, <a href="https://theconversation.com/informal-and-illegal-housing-on-the-rise-as-our-cities-fail-to-offer-affordable-places-to-live-116065" target="_blank">informal</a> or no housing at all who are most exposed. Crowded housing conditions are bad for all occupants, largely through the increased risks of infections, as WHO <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?ua=1" target="_blank">Guidelines on Health and Housing</a> clearly identify.
<h2>Expose one, expose us all</h2>
The increased risk of COVID-19 infection will have impacts on both the residents of crammed dwellings and the rest of the community. Improving the housing conditions of the most marginalised members of our society is an important biosecurity measure.
The number of Australians who are <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/2049.0Appendix12016?opendocument&amp;tabname=Notes&amp;prodno=2049.0&amp;issue=2016&amp;num=&amp;view=" target="_blank">homeless</a> <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/2049.0Media%20Release12016" target="_blank">grew dramatically from 2011-2016</a>. The largest increase was people living in severely overcrowded dwellings.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322476/original/file-20200324-155674-1hibain.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322476/original/file-20200324-155674-1hibain.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Data: ABS Census 2016, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">CC BY</a>
This trend includes a sharp rise in older people living in crowded or marginal housing.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322478/original/file-20200324-155683-ftqgrs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322478/original/file-20200324-155683-ftqgrs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Data: ABS Census 2016, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">CC BY</a>
Crowding is endemic in Indigenous communities. <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/c1daa420-3547-497c-b964-17b149ceba02/17718.pdf.aspx?inline=true" target="_blank">Poorly maintained and inadequate</a> dwelling conditions make the impacts of crowding worse.
Previous experience with swine flu – <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cdi37suppl.htm%7E02-vpds%7E2-4-influenza" target="_blank">Influenza A (H1N1)</a> – indicates contagious disease outbreaks in Indigenous communities <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-will-devastate-aboriginal-communities-if-we-dont-act-now-133766" target="_blank">will be catastrophic</a>. After over a decade of making remote areas harder places to be – as a result of cuts to housing and infrastructure allocations and increased water insecurity – they are now expected to operate as refuges.
Tertiary students, including international students, are also likely to be living in overcrowded share houses and <a href="https://theconversation.com/tracking-the-rise-of-room-sharing-and-overcrowding-and-what-it-means-for-housing-in-australia-107265" target="_blank">room-share rentals</a>. These arrangements already breach basic health and sanitation standards.
These problems aren’t due to a shortage of housing. Census data show the <a href="https://www.sgsep.com.au/publications/insights/why-was-no-one-home-on-census-night" target="_blank">number of unoccupied dwellings</a> increased during the same period that homelessness grew.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322486/original/file-20200324-155674-227xng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322486/original/file-20200324-155674-227xng.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
Data: ABS Census, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">CC BY</a>
Rather than an absolute shortage of homes, our <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-financialisation-of-housing-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-73767" target="_blank">increasingly financialised property market</a> has distorted access to decent accommodation. Housing is now treated as an asset instead of a basic right. In recent years platforms such as Airbnb have made this situation worse by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2016.1249011" target="_blank">transforming permanent rentals</a> into short-term accommodation for tourists.
<h2>What should governments do?</h2>
Moves to <a href="https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/morrison-calls-on-landlords-to-make-sacrifices-amid-fears-renters-face-eviction--c-754870" target="_blank">prevent evictions</a> and to offer <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-21/mortgage-pause-coronavirus-nab-commonwealth-anz-westpac/12076690" target="_blank">mortgage relief</a> during the pandemic period are an urgent first step in what needs to be rapid national action on housing.
Securing adequate housing for those in unstable accommodation, particularly those who need to isolate, is the next phase in this public health response. Suitable housing must be made available immediately in locations near hospitals and key health services. This can be triaged.
Options might include:
<ul>
<li>
local hotels or motels – for people in metropolitan and some regional centres this seems to be an obvious option as many are likely empty of travellers
</li>
<li>
vacant holiday homes or temporary workforce housing
</li>
<li>
other health accommodation used for rehabilitation that can be repurposed
</li>
<li>
construction of temporary dwellings.
</li>
</ul>
Hotels close to major teaching (university) hospitals could be commandeered for patients with COVID-19 who need quarantined nursing care, but not intubation to help them breathe.
These hotels could also provide places of rest for health workers who might wish to isolate themselves from their families while they fight in our favour. For example, the University of Tasmania has provided one of its <a href="https://www.utas.edu.au/alerts/coronavirus-update" target="_blank">hotel buildings</a>, which has been used for student housing, to the Tasmanian government for this purpose.
Access to hotels and motels for civilian isolation practices more broadly is an obvious solution across urban areas and regional centres.
To reduce the risks arising from inadequate housing, the nation’s vast holiday rental supply should also be considered for people on priority waiting lists for social housing who are in crowded accommodation. Owners of currently empty holiday accommodation could receive the equivalent of rent assistance payments from the Commonwealth for making their housing available.
A vast tourism workforce of property managers, maintenance and cleaning staff, already reeling from the bushfire crisis, is likely ready and able to repurpose residential tourist accommodation for those in need.
On the other side of the health crisis, it’s clear a rapid, nation-building expansion in social and affordable housing must be part of Australia’s plan. Well-designed, secure and maintained housing should be Australia’s first defence, not our weakest link, in combating health, climate and economic crises.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nicole-gurran-759" target="_blank">Nicole Gurran</a>, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841" target="_blank">University of Sydney</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-phibbs-27130" target="_blank">Peter Phibbs</a>, Director, Henry Halloran Trust, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841" target="_blank">University of Sydney</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tess-lea-445805" target="_blank">Tess Lea</a>, Associate Professor, Gender and Cultural Studies, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841" target="_blank">University of Sydney</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/homelessness-and-overcrowding-expose-us-all-to-coronavirus-heres-what-we-can-do-to-stop-the-spread-134378" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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Homelessness and overcrowding expose us all to coronavirus. Here's what we can do to stop the spread

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GUEST OBSERVATION
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us our health is intimately connected to the health of the person next to us, and that everyone needs shelter. It has created unprecedented urgency about moving people who are homeless into emergency accommodation – for their health and ours. So what happens next?
Getting people into hotel and motel rooms and off the streets is a good thing, but these are stopgap measures. They don’t provide a home.
The rush to shelter people before the peak of the virus has been driven by a pressing need to protect us all. As the only seven-day-a-week mobile outreach service still operating in Victoria, <a href="https://www.launchhousing.org.au/">Launch Housing</a> has temporarily housed 800 people, half of whom were sleeping rough. So what will happen to them and the thousands of other Australians in emergency accommodation when social-distancing restrictions ease and our world returns to something resembling normal?
Will they exit back into street homelessness to become the face of fear and stigma, while the rest of the community returns to more social activities?
A way to find homes right now
Australia has a significant but solvable homelessness problem, so let’s start solving it right now.
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330009/original/file-20200423-47804-1m369kz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330009/original/file-20200423-47804-1m369kz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" alt=""></a>
 Image: AAP, Author provided
To avoid people being deposited back onto the streets, we’re asking state and territory governments to fund a rapid spot-purchasing program. The Victorian government has done it before on a smaller scale in 2016, and it worked. It’s time to do it again, but on a bigger scale and around the country.
The spot-purchasing program would fund community housing agencies to enter the property market to buy up “distressed” or cheap housing assets. These properties would be let at below market rent to people who pay 30% of their income as a social rent.
Vendors and developers would get <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/price-cuts-on-the-rise-as-vendors-rush-to-sell-in-coronavirus-pandemic-950402/?utm_campaign=strap-masthead&amp;utm_source=the-age&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_content=pos5&amp;ref=pos1">much-needed sales</a> and thousands of people would get a home. Taxpayers would get an enduring social benefit for years to come, as expensive nightly motel bills – without any long-term benefit – get converted to community-owned property assets.
We estimate the program would cost about A$210 million in Victoria and a similar amount in other states. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/supportive-housing-is-cheaper-than-chronic-homelessness-67539">costs more to treat street homelessness than it does to fix it</a>. So, it makes economic and social sense to put the fix in now.
This is our mirror moment. We simply can’t afford to drop people when no one is looking and attention turns elsewhere.
People in emergency accommodation can’t wait years for new housing to be built. They (and we) need those homes now while longer-term solutions are developed.
Meeting rising needs in the longer term
Many people who are not homeless have lost jobs or had their work hours cut, and are facing their first-ever brush with housing insecurity. They are struggling, paying more than 30% of their income for housing.
There was a housing crisis before this latest upheaval, and these conditions haven’t changed. Rents were too high and there <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-housing-system-needs-a-big-shake-up-heres-how-we-can-crack-this-130291">weren’t enough affordable homes</a>.
The health and economic fallout from COVID-19 has exposed the urgent need for more homes that are cheaper to rent for people on moderate, low or no incomes.
Crucially, we are also calling for the Australian government to fast-track the building of more social and affordable housing as part of an economic stimulus package.
A national social housing stimulus package will help get people back to work, speed the recovery, give the building industry the confidence to retain more workers and put roofs over people’s heads.
Initiatives to fund the construction of new social housing could be rolled out quickly. The industry capacity is there to do it, in partnership with the community housing sector.
The early stages of the stimulus would bring forward maintenance and new construction projects that are already on the drawing board.
By targeting locations with transport and facilities but <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-puts-casual-workers-at-risk-of-homelessness-unless-they-get-more-support-133782">high levels of rental stress</a>, new social housing buildings can be built quickly and integrated well into local communities.
The stimulus should be designed to encourage new mixed housing models, including properties that are “<a href="https://theconversation.com/build-to-rent-could-shake-up-real-estate-but-wont-take-off-without-major-tax-changes-119603">built to rent</a>”.
It would increase the supply of social housing for households that are homeless, or at risk of becoming so, and would stimulate the building, maintenance and construction industry.
A building-led recovery
The program would build on the <a href="http://www.nwhn.net.au/admin/file/content101/c6/social_housing_initiative_review.pdf">Social Housing Initiative</a> that was launched in response to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Some 20,000 new social housing units were built throughout Australia.
This time, we think it is possible to deliver 30,000 new units. Community housing organisations could raise extra private finance to build another 5,000 homes.
We’ll need this <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-social-housing-essential-infrastructure-how-we-think-about-it-does-matter-110777">social infrastructure</a> more than ever after the pandemic. <a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-numbers-of-renters-are-trapped-for-years-in-homes-they-cant-afford-125216">Rental stress</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/6-steps-towards-remaking-the-homelessness-system-so-it-works-for-young-people-136385">homelessness</a> are increasing and the <a href="https://www.anglicare.asn.au/research-advocacy/the-rental-affordability-snapshot">lack of low-price rental housing</a> are issues we can no longer ignore.
The pandemic has created some very real challenges, but it also creates some unique opportunities to accelerate progress on ending homelessness, to recognise our interconnectedness and to give people the best possible protection of all – a home.
<hr>
This article was co-authored by Bevan Warner, CEO of Launch Housing.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137069/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;">
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ron-wakefield-1044738">Ron Wakefield</a>, Professor of Construction, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor, International, and Dean, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-need-to-house-everyone-has-never-been-clearer-heres-a-2-step-strategy-to-get-it-done-137069">original article</a>.
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The need to house everyone has never been clearer, a 2-step plan to do it

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Damien Cooley, director of Cooley Auctions, has launched the first Real Estate Sleep Out, bringing the real estate industry together to raise money for Youth Off The Streets.
The sleep out involves spending the night on Bondi Beach this Monday August 22 to raise awareness and funds for the charity.
Father Chris Riley's Youth Off The Streets offers a continuum of care to young people between the age of 12 - 22 who are chronically homeless, abused, suffering from addiction or in general need of help.
They offer a range of programs including crisis and short term accommodation to long term residential care, counselling, secondary education and rehabilitation.
Youth Off The Street have extended their services to various communities and regional centres throughout NSW via our Outreach Programs.
They also operate a volunteer run food van service each night in Kings Cross.
They have developed these programs in response to the growing needs of our city and regional communities over the past 20 years.
For more information and to help raise funds for the charity <a href="https://everydayhero.com.au/event/realestatesleepout" target="_blank">click here</a>.
Property Observer has donated webspace for the marketing campaign of the charity initiative.
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