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Housing and homelessness

Key points

  • Homeless people sleep rough or in improvised or severely crowded dwellings, or in supported accommodation.
  • Key contributors to homelessness include poverty, experiencing homelessness as a child, social exclusion (such as racial discrimination), traumatic experience, or substance use. Transitions from jail, inpatient psychiatric services, the birth of first child, a relationship breakdown, or a redundancy/retirement; structural issues (such as insufficient housing stock), climate change and colonisation also contribute to housing insecurity and homelessness.
  • As well as being a fundamental human right, adequate, safe and secure housing provides a foundation for individuals and families to develop a sense of identity and belonging. It is recognised as essential to individual and community wellbeing.
  • Homelessness denies people the right to shelter and safety, disrupts the connections they have with their family and communities, and is also associated with a sense of not belonging, being valued or included in social and community life.
  • The sense of marginalisation and alienation from mainstream society that arises from homelessness also has profound effects on the physical and mental health of those experiencing it.
  • There are particularly detrimental outcomes for marginalised individuals and groups who have complex support and housing needs and are hence likely to experience homelessness. Such groups include those living with a mental illness, single-parent families, Indigenous Australians and young people.
  • Tackling the factors that drive homelessness and increasing access to services are among the recommended policy responses to homelessness. Providing secure housing, including long-term accommodation with support and housing subsidies, is a priority.

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