Fix for homelessness getting harder to find after ‘years of inaction’
The sharp rise in homelessness in Australia has been described as a ‘‘national disgrace’’, reports Georgie Moore, of AAP.
FOR years, Helen had nowhere to go. She slept on couches, in crisis accommodation and rooming houses, but rarely felt safe.
Like tens of thousands of Australians, a lack of affordable housing options left the 54yearold at risk of falling through the cracks, and in what has been described as a ‘‘national disgrace’’, experts warn there is no quick fix to a growing problem for more and more vulnerable people.
‘‘[At] one of the rooming houses, the ceiling collapses in the front door . . . and then I was moved to another one, and I was away for a weekend and someone had broken in and slept in my bed and ate my food,’’ Helen, who preferred not to use her surname, said.
‘‘Some places I was terrified because I’ve been told stories like ‘Don’t go into the kitchen cooking meals because you might get held up with a syringe’. ‘‘I was just in fear constantly.’’ Eventually, Helen secured a place in social housing, a onebedroom townhouse, which ‘‘gives me the luxury to come and go as I please’’.
But not everyone is so lucky, Launch Housing chief executive Tony Keenan says.
His organisation has established a national homelessness monitor, based on a similar study in the UK, in a bid to tackle the ‘‘national disgrace’’.
‘‘We’re dealing with a combination of big population growth, [a] massive increase in housing costs, a decline in social housing and you don’t have to be very good at maths to work out what’s going to happen with that,’’ Mr Keenan said.
‘‘The problem does seem very big, but it’s not acceptable to throw your hands up in the air and say nothing can be done.’’
Census data shows homelessness increased by 14% and rough sleeping by 20% in Australia between 2011 and 2016.
Instances of severe overcrowding, where people live in dwellings with at least four fewer bedrooms than required, grew by 23% over the same period.
Sydney is the capital of the country’s homelessness crisis and the problem has increased by 48% over the five years. This was followed by a 32% jump in Brisbane and a 22% rise in Melbourne.
The main factors are poverty, domestic violence, the high cost of housing and social welfare payments that cannot keep up with living expenses.
Mr Keenan said significant investments in social housing and an expansion of outreach programmes for rough sleepers were needed to tackle homelessness.
‘‘Since the 1990s, governments have allowed public housing levels to dwindle to alarming levels and now that they want to fix it, they can’t fix it quickly due to years of inaction,’’ he said.
Social housing has given Helen the space to try to work through her trauma and rebuild her life and she wants other people to get the same chance.
‘‘There needs to be more social housing . . . and the second thing is getting support when they get the housing.’’