NEWS: No place to call home

TIME is of the essence. For homeless Australians, the 105,000 on the Australian Bureau of Statistics count and likely thousands more sleeping rough, living in boarding houses, emergency accommodation or bumming a room from friends or relatives, those five words couldn't be more profound.

They come from Swinburne University social policy researcher David Mackenzie, co-author of an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study to be published today on the state of homelessness in Australia, a report finding a significant rise in the number of families without a place to call home.

"Time has moved on when it comes to homelessness in Australia. It's not like the 1950s and 60s any more where the homeless tended to be older single men on skid row," Mackenzie says. "Overall the report (Counting the Homeless) shows the number of homeless remains just over 100,000 (between 2001 and 2006 when the latest ABS figures were compiled), however for families there has been a 17 per cent increase and for single people a 10 per cent increase.

"But for teenagers living on their own there was a 20 per cent decrease. This was something of a surprise, but it shows resources committed to early intervention programs for them worked.

"The policy lesson is that a significant amount of early intervention work is needed for both young people and for families."

How quickly governments, federal and state, can get these policy settings right and programs up and running, to meet Kevin Rudd's ambitious commitment to halve the number of homeless in Australia by 2020, is the subject of concern. Particularly because all service providers agree that since the 2006 census the numbers of homeless across Australia is likely to have risen significantly.

Mission Australia chief executive Toby Hall says there has been a huge spike in demand for his organisation's services in the past two years, particularly from families. The impact of the global financial crisis over the past year has been particularly acute.

"What is happening is that people may not have lost jobs entirely but have had their hours cut back," Hall says. "A household budget that was just scraping by is now in deficit, a situation not sustainable beyond a few months. They can't pay the rent, they need to take emergency accommodation where they can, and their children are displaced from school.

"We have seen a 70 per cent increase in homeless families in the last 24 months, much driven by the global financial crisis.

"And for single males there has been a 50 per cent increase in the past six months alone for similar reasons."

Rudd has aligned himself closely with homelessness issues since coming to power in December 2007. He spent his last Saturday night before the federal election visiting a homeless shelter. On taking office he urged his Labor colleagues to do the same, to see for themselves the inequity that still exists in Australia.

Rudd labelled homelessness a "national obscenity" when launching a green paper into the issue in May last year and pledged $1.2billion in funding over four years last December to help meet the target when the government's white paper, "The Road Home: A National Approach to Reducing Homelessness", was released.

At a Council of Australian Governments meeting last year the states agreed to match federal housing funding of $400m to address the homeless problem.

But the COAG timetable has slipped, with NSW and the ACT still to submit implementation plans this week despite a March 31 deadline to do so. On Monday federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek acknowledged the delay by some states and territories, and on Tuesday the government started providing funds to those states where an implementation plan had been agreed.

Plibersek says the federal government wanted to ensure the states were putting new money to homelessness programs before any agreement was reached and federal funds provided. She told Sydney radio station 2UE that NSW, the state with the highest number of homeless people according to the census data, had "a great plan ready to go" but must commit new money before it can be agreed to.

"We've asked them for a few more details," Plibersek says. "We are checking up to make sure that the state contribution is new money."

Mackenzie says Rudd's commitment to the homeless was "universally welcomed in the Australian community after long years of neglect". But he made a call for urgency.

"To halve homelessness by 2020 requires the right policy settings, but importantly policy must be implemented sufficiently to have effect and in time," Mackenzie says.

"There is strong evidence that early intervention has produced a decrease in the number of homeless teenagers. To decrease this further, early intervention for youth will need to be at least doubled at an estimated cost of $40 million.

"A significant initiative for at-risk families may require some $60m-90m but over time would potentially have a major impact on reducing the number of homeless persons.

"In all of this, time is of the essence."

Homelessness Australia national chairwoman Narelle Clay says the AIHW data is a reminder that such a high degree of homelessness in a country as prosperous as Australia is completely unacceptable.

"That's why it was such an important announcement for the Prime Minister to make at the launch of the white paper, and why it's been important that time has been taken since to develop plans to address homelessness in the states and territories," Clay says.

"I think the amount of time taken up to now has been reasonable because it's such a complex issue. But we do need to see those state implementation plans on the record.

"I'm hoping we see them very imminently. We don't want to waste time now. We need to get on with it."

Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Clare Martin agrees, calling for action sooner rather than later.

"The sooner people at risk of homelessness can access early intervention programs and integrated services the more protection they will have," Martin says. "As the winter cold sets in it is vital rough sleepers have somewhere warm to sleep."

But Hall urges patience. "I'm not aware of anyone seriously engaged in the homelessness field who isn't supportive of the strategic direction government is taking," he says.

"Realistically we're at a point where we do need to see stuff start to come to fruition, but it's unrealistic for people in the sector to criticise progress when we're about to see things start.

"We have to recognise what has been done. From Mission Australia's perspective we have an affordable housing facility up and running in Melbourne that wasn't there six months ago. The same with an affordable housing project for families, up and running in western Sydney. Of course we would love to be able to house every homeless person tomorrow and for this change to happen immediately, but we need to be patient in the sector.

"What's been done already is significant and is moving in the right direction."

For homeless Melbourne woman Bek Smith, policy and politics pale into insignificance as she battles day to day to get by.

Now 29, Smith first experienced homelessness in her teens. Like so many homeless people, she had a range of problems, including drug dependency. Also like so many, she has moved in and out of homelessness over the course of her adult life.

This is why many believe the census estimates, which are a snapshot in time, don't reflect the true numbers of people who are homeless in Australia in any one year.

"I started using at 16 and by 17 I was locked up in Deer Park women's prison," Smith says from the Hanover crisis accommodation centre in Melbourne's Southbank.

"For the next four years I lived either in prison or on the street." She pauses to reflect.

"It hasn't been a walk in the park, that's for sure. I don't resent anybody. My mother had me quite young. I blame my own curiosity, but definitely experiencing as much homelessness as I have, it's been extremely challenging."

Smith says it is very difficult to get into the private accommodation market.

"It's pretty hard to put a (rental) bond together when you're on a disability support pension," she says. "I was in a terrible car accident in Sydney, a passenger in a car that hit a telephone post at 100km/h. I broke my sternum in seven places, ribs and ankle. And anyway the places (to live) are all so dear."

Smith says she hasn't given up hope of finding paid work now that she's clean and sober. Her field is film editing. "I'm getting to the point where I'm a bit toey not working, so it would be good," she says.

Plibersek says it isn't the case that homeless programs have stalled. "A massive amount of work has gone on," she says. "We are building thousands of new homes, we're funding millions of dollars worth of new services. We're opening new services for aged homeless people, services like the ones that have never existed before to help some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

"We've refunded 101 reconnect services to help young people reconnect with their families, we've increased their funding. There is an enormous amount of activity that has already gone on that hasn't depended on the signing of these documents.

"When we sign these agreements with the states, we also know that their effort will increase along with our effort."

Hanover Welfare chief executive officer Tony Keenan says he understands the bureaucratic delay, given the complex needs of homeless people means more is required than just addressing a housing shortage.

"We need to get the services moving, but they can't be knee-jerk, tempting as it is," he says. "If we are to make real change we have to ensure other relevant players are at the table: schools, mental health, job providers.

"For example, 65 per cent of school-age children living in SAAP (supported accommodation) services don't go to school.

"After they move out and into private accommodation that figure increases to 66 per cent, so we are having a negative impact. This is because we have to shift them around to find housing. It's just one example of the complexities involved."

Source: The Australian