O VER THE PAST 12 MONTHS, you wouldn’t be alone in noticing a rise in the number of people living on the streets in cities across the country. While most of us can’t imagine what it’s like to be facing that kind of situation (not to mention those people we don’t see in insecure housing), perhaps we comfort ourselves with the thought that at least our position in Australia isn’t as awful as it is in other countries. It will come as some shock, then, to learn that not only are we now one of the worst-performing countries in the devel- oped world when it comes to tackling homelessness – Finland, in particular, has almost wiped it out – even parts of North America are doing better than us, according to David Pearson, CEO of the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness. “In terms of homelessness, the safety net in Australia is one of the weakest in the OECD now, and we’ve been trending backwards – while other countries are increasing the effectiveness of their safety nets, there are big holes in ours and the number of people out there who are home- less is still unacceptable,” he says. The good news, David says, is that the current Australian government “has done more, in a shorter period of time, to battle this crisis than any government in
living memory”. The bad news is it’s still not nearly enough. With the combined catastrophes of a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis, soaring inflation and hous - ing affordability struggles, between 2020 and 2022 Mission Australia saw a 50% increase in the number of people experi- encing homelessness, a 103% rise in the number of people sleeping rough, and a 40% increase in those living in short-term temporary accommodation.
One of the fastest-growing demo- graphics suffering the emotional, physical and financial crisis of homelessness is people over the age of 55. Almost one in seven of those who were homeless on Australia’s 2021 Census night were in that age group – more than 19,000 people. You won’t be seeing all of them out on the streets; in fact, rough sleepers only make up a small minority of the homeless population. Most are hidden from sight, sleeping in a relative’s borrowed garage, staying in temporary accommodation like boarding houses or trying to make do in a tent or caravan. OLDER AUSTRALIANS IN CRISIS Sharon Callister, CEO of Mission Austra- lia, explains that an alarming number of older people who have been living on the edge of poverty are being pushed over the homeless precipice by the imperfect storm of rising rents, a shortage of social hous- ing and huge jumps in the cost of living. “People who are reliant on the aged care pension and who are renting are facing a dire situation because of cost of living pressures and a situation where their rents are rising, or a landlord is sell- ing and they have to move and it’s just too hard, or too expensive, to find something suitable, so they’re being pushed over the brink into homelessness,” Sharon says.
“People who are reliant on the aged care pension and who are renting are facing a dire situation.” SHARON CALLISTER Mission Australia
WHAT’S CHANGED?
I t’s been three years since DARE last tackled the subject of homelessness, focusing on the heartbreaking stories of women in their 60s and 70s who had been homeless for several years. What has most obviously changed over those few years is that the problem has gotten worse, not only in terms of raw numbers – most shockingly the 103% increase in people sleeping
rough since 2020, plus a 40% jump in people living in short-term accommodation – but in demographics. While most of the people who seek help from Mission Australia’s homelessness services are still those who rely on income-support payments, which are increasingly insufficient to meet the costs of living, the charity’s CEO Sharon Callister says the biggest change has been
a whole new demographic of people needing help. “We’re seeing people turn up to our services that we’ve not really seen before; people who are working, either part time or in a job that pays minimum wage, and they simply can’t afford their rent and essentials like food and electricity. It’s an emerging group that’s an increasingly large part of a homelessness emergency,” she says.
“There’s also been an increase in the number of people experiencing more long-term forms of homelessness, we’re seeing a lot more people sleeping rough or in tents or in cars. “Previously it was more a case of people sleeping on friends’ sofas, so at least they were living in a house, but as time goes by more and more people are having this extreme kind of experience.”
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DARE SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
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