Homelessness In Australia Research Articles

The changing geography of homelessness in Australia (2001–21) and its structural drivers

The changing geography of homelessness in Australia (2001–21) and its structural drivers

Leave no-one behind: reducing health disparities for women experiencing homelessness in Australia.

Leave no-one behind: reducing health disparities for women experiencing homelessness in Australia.

‘Back Off! Stop Making US Illegal!’: The Criminalisation of Homelessness in Australia

In Australia, vagrancy and public order laws have been used to criminalise homelessness since colonisation. Such laws have never provided an effective deterrent against ‘offending’ because most crimes committed by homeless people are survival-related or otherwise associated with their homeless status. It is generally agreed that a welfare-oriented rather than a punitive approach is needed if these ‘crimes’ are to be prevented, however the perspectives of homeless people on this subject remain largely unknown. We undertook a national study where we asked homeless individuals and criminal law practitioners to comment on whether and how criminal law processes could respond more appropriately to the ‘offending’ behaviour of homeless people. Practitioners viewed criminal law interventions as an opportunity to connect homeless individuals with the services they required. However, the homeless participants were not supportive of mandated social service intervention. They eschewed a criminal identity and wanted state actors to leave them alone.

Specialised residential care for older people subject to homelessness: experiences of residents and staff of a new aged care home in Australia

BackgroundThe number of older people experiencing homelessness in Australia is rising, yet there is a lack of specialised residential care for older people subject to homelessness with high care and palliative needs. To address this significant gap, a purpose-built care home was recently opened in Sydney, Australia.MethodsThis qualitative study explores the experiences of both residents and staff who were living and working in the home over the first twelve months since its opening. Residents were interviewed at baseline (n = 32) and after six months (n = 22), while staff (n = 13) were interviewed after twelve months. Interviews were analysed using a reflexive thematic analysis approach informed by grounded theory.ResultsThree main themes emerged: (1) Challenges in providing care for older people subject to homelessness with high care needs; (2) Defining a residential care service that supports older people subject to homelessness with high care needs, and (3) Perception of the impact of living and working in a purpose-built care home after six months (residents) and twelve months (staff) since its opening. A key finding was that of the complex interplay between resident dependency and behaviours, referral pathways and stakeholder engagement, government funding models and requirements, staff training and wellbeing, and the need to meet operational viability.ConclusionThis study provides novel insights into how the lives of older people subject to homelessness with high care needs are affected by living in a specifically designed care home, and on some of the challenges faced and solved by staff working in the care home. A significant gap in the healthcare system remains when it comes to the effective provision of high care for older people subject to homelessness.

Logic modelling as hermeneutic praxis: Bringing knowledge systems into view during comprehensive primary health care planning for homelessness in Australia.

Logic modelling is used widely in health promotion planning for complex health and social problems. It is often undertaken collaboratively with stakeholders across sectors that hold and enact different institutional approaches. We use hermeneutic philosophy to explore how knowledge is 'lived' by - and unfolds differently for - cross-sectoral stakeholders during comprehensive primary healthcare service planning. An Organisational Action Research partnership was established with a non-government organisation designing comprehensive primary health care for individuals experiencing homelessness in Adelaide, Australia. Grey literature, stakeholder input, academic feedback, a targeted literature review and evidence synthesis were integrated in iterative cycles to inform and refine the logic model. Diverse knowledge systems are active when cross-sectoral stakeholders collaborate on logic models for comprehensive primary health care planning. Considering logic modelling as a hermeneutic praxis helps to foreground and explore these differences. In our case, divergent ideas emerged in how health/wellbeing and trust were conceptualised; language had different meanings across sectors; and the outcomes and data sought were nuanced for various collaborators. We explicate these methodological insights and also contribute our evidence-informed, collaboratively-derived model for design of a comprehensive primary health care service with populations experiencing homelessness. We outline the value of considering cross-sectoral logic modelling as hermeneutic praxis. Engaging with points of difference in cross-sectoral knowledge systems can strengthen logic modelling processes, partnerships and potential outcomes for complex and comprehensive primary health care services.

Nurses’ perceptions of the skills, knowledge and attributes required to optimise scope of practice and improve access to care for people experiencing homelessness in Australia: A cross-sectional study

BackgroundPeople experiencing homelessness are less likely to access healthcare, particularly primary and preventive care. Nurses are well placed to improve access to healthcare for this vulnerable population.AimTo explore nurses’ perceptions of the skills, knowledge and attributes required to optimise scope of practice and improve access to healthcare for people experiencing homelessness, to underpin an education framework.DesignA cross-sectional national survey of nurses in Australia.MethodsPart of a larger study, a 222-item electronic survey was disseminated via social media and nursing colleges and associations. Participants rated the level of priority of specific skills knowledge and attributes to optimise nurses’ scope of practice and improve access to care for people experiencing homelessness. Quantitative data were analysed descriptively and qualitative data thematically.FindingsThe final analysis comprised n = 67 surveys. Participants were registered nurses (n = 54), nurse practitioners (n = 12) and one enrolled nurse. Items rated as highest priority and used in practice to optimise access to care were interpersonal attributes (n = 66.5, 99%), diagnosing presenting complaints (n = 64, 95%) and interpreting diagnostic test results (n = 63, 93%). Organisationally, support from colleagues (n = 58, 87%), managers (n = 57, 85%) and clear clinical guidelines (n = 46, 69%) are reportedly important. Most participants stated willingness to undertake further education in the care of people experiencing homelessness (93%, n = 62).ConclusionIn developing a nursing education framework to optimise nurses’ scope of practice and improve access to care for people experiencing homelessness, the findings suggest that interpersonal skills, diagnosis and treatment are priority topics.

Veteran homelessness in Australia: What do we know? What has been done? What do we need to do?

We report on the extent of veteran homelessness in Australia, what has already been done to address it and what actions are recommended to further improve the response. Work conducted by not-for-profit organisations and the Department of Veterans' Affairs are outlined with positive prospects for significant coordinated action to further address the situation reported.

Nurses’ perceptions on the skills, knowledge, and attributes required to provide healthcare to people experiencing homelessness in Australia: A qualitative study

Nurses’ perceptions on the skills, knowledge, and attributes required to provide healthcare to people experiencing homelessness in Australia: A qualitative study

Why do some disadvantaged Australian families become homeless? Resources, disadvantage, housing and welfare

Homeless families include children whose experiences of homelessness and extreme poverty can have long-term negative impacts over the life course. This paper proposes a resource-orientated causal explanation of the mechanisms of family homelessness in Australia. Given the critical role of poverty in housing insecurity, the model explains why some families living in extreme poverty and disadvantage become homeless and others do not. The research is positioned within a critical realist approach to theoretical causal explanation. It is influenced by interdisciplinary literature and psychologist Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources theory. Previously published empirical analysis informs and supports the development of this theoretical model. Families use their resources to mitigate challenges to their housing security. However, disadvantage limits their accumulation of resources, contributes to accelerating resource loss, and constrains their capacity to act. An acute lack of affordable housing and insufficient welfare payments to secure private rental accommodation severely impacts a family’s capacity to navigate crises and avoid homelessness.

Utopian Thinking, Social Work, and Homelessness: Critiquing Ideas Regarding Welfare Dependence

ABSTRACT In this article social policy theorist Ruth Levitas’s utopian method is employed in critiquing and proposing alternative ways of thinking about and responding to homelessness in Australia. Ideas embedded in contemporary policy responses to homelessness are challenged regarding welfare dependence and homeless identities. Levitas’s method provides an important tool for social workers and social policy activists to rethink policy approaches to homelessness and confront considering neoliberal agendas emphasising individual responsibility and welfare dependency. IMPLICATIONS Homelessness is a major social issue in Australia and needs advocacy for social change. It is critical that social workers contribute to public debate and policy change that challenges dominant constructions of homeless people as welfare dependent. Utopian thinking offers an important tool for social workers to evaluate and critique dominant discourses regarding individualised and deficit-based discourses regarding homeless people.

Community-centred oral healthcare for adults experiencing homelessness in Australia: Perceptions and experiences of key stakeholders.

The objective of the study was to identify whether creating a responsive, respectful and trustworthy environment that provides free dental care for clients who are homeless using volunteer dental professionals was effective in meeting their oral health needs in Fremantle, Western Australia. Qualitative research conducted between October 2018 and August 2019 was guided by a social constructivist paradigm to gather and analyse data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with adults experiencing homelessness accessing a community dental clinic and health providers and other stakeholders involved in its establishment, management and service delivery. An inductive approach to analysis was used to organise themes under the categories of 'establishing the oral health clinic' (OHC) and 'responses to the implementation of the clinic' Thirty-nine semi-structured interviews were conducted across eight participant groups: clients, executive management, the oral health clinical reference group, volunteer dentists, employed staff, nursing students, volunteer staff and other stakeholders. Key findings across all groups included positive responses to the establishment and implementation of the OHC, the quality of care and the safe and respectful environment in which services were delivered. Challenges related to sustainability include uncertainty around ongoing funding and recruitment of dental professionals. Whilst volunteer dental services fill a gap in meeting the complex needs of this population group, mainstream services must consider and address issues of equity in this context. Findings can be used to guide this process that includes creating environments of respect and trust where adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness feel safe, welcomed and more likely to return to the service.

Magnet mobility myths: exploring geographical mobility amongst people experiencing, or at-risk of, homelessness in Australia

It is often assumed that people experiencing homelessness gravitate to large cities and central city areas because of the concentration of homelessness services — a so-called magnet or honeypot effect. Yet little is actually known about how people experiencing homelessness move across space over time. This article explores this geography by comparing the mobility of those experiencing homelessness, those ‘at-risk’, and those renting privately in Australia, between waves in two Australian panel surveys: Journeys Home and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). Results suggest that while people experiencing homelessness are more likely to move than the other two groups, they more similarly short distances and appear more likely to move for reasons such as relationship breakdown, eviction and to escape violence. While some evidence of movement to areas with particular characteristics (sorting) was detected amongst those at-risk and those renting privately, this was not the case for those experiencing homelessness. Results do not support the contention that people experiencing homelessness gravitate to central urban areas well-resourced with homelessness services over time. The findings challenge assumptions about magnet effects and homelessness and have important implications for the provision and delivery of homelessness services in Australia and beyond.

The Spatial Dynamics of Homelessness in Australia: Urbanisation, Intra-City Dynamics and Affordable Housing

While homelessness in Australia has remained relatively stable at the national level, its spatial distribution is becoming more nuanced. This paper draws on homelessness estimates produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to explore the spatial dynamics of homelessness in Australia over a fifteen-year period. Building on existing work, we show that homelessness is becoming more urbanised with evidence of spatial convergence, mainly driven by a surge in severe crowding in our major cities. However, when exploring intra-city patterns, we find distinctive intra-city spatial dynamics featuring strong suburbanisation of ‘couch surfing’ in state capital cities, contrasting with shifts in severe crowding numbers toward middle and inner regions of most state capitals. We argue that these dynamics reflect the retreat of affordable rental housing supply to the outer suburban fringe, and the coping strategies that ‘couch surfers’ and those aspiring to live in the inner cities are compelled to follow in response to the changing spatial configuration of affordable housing.

Integrating healthcare services for people experiencing homelessness in Australia: key issues and research principles

In 2016, the Australian Census found approximately 116 000 people to be experiencing homelessness.[1][1] People experiencing homelessness have higher morbidity and mortality than the general population,[2][2] and so require meaningful...

Mapping the riskscape of using privately-owned short-term lets for specialist family violence crisis accommodation

COVID-19 has generated many problems and some opportunities in the housing market. The potential role of privately-owned short-term lets meeting specialist family violence crisis accommodation demand is one such opportunity. This paper engages with an important and increasing practice in the Australian context, of the utilisation of private housing stock as a component part of a public housing crisis response system, in this case explored in relation to domestic and family violence. In seeking to gain insights into the feasibility of this practice, this article will first frame mixed public/private accommodation provision as potentially overlapping relations between a thin territory of insufficient crisis infrastructure and a thick territory of commodified short-term let infrastructure. Second, this paper situates the potential of this intersection of mixed private/public responses in terms of riskscapes by unpacking how risk is perceived within these contested territories. The findings highlight tensions between both real and perceived understandings of safety, housing, wellbeing, economic and political risks. While there was some support for utilising short-term lets for crisis accommodation, barriers were revealed to adding thickness to the crisis accommodation space. Given increasing homelessness in Australia, diversifying crisis models could offer increased violence-prevention infrastructure to support women.

Responsibility for homelessness: Lived experience perspectives and their alignment with neoliberal discourse

AbstractIn a context of increasing welfare conditionality, governmental responses to homelessness in Australia continue to be influenced by neoliberal discourses of personal responsibility. This is reflected in their emphasis on individualised interventions and lack of attention to structural drivers of homelessness. Research examining these issues has primarily focused on policies and practices aiming to responsibilise individuals’ conduct, and less so on how those with lived experiences view and apportion responsibility for homelessness. In recognition of this gap, this paper reports findings from a qualitative study examining the views of responsibility expressed by nine individuals with lived experiences of homelessness. Findings demonstrate that participants recognised their own responsibilities, yet also highlighted significant constraints on individual agency associated with being homeless and emphasised unmet responsibilities of governments. Our analysis demonstrates how participants’ views contrast with neoliberal discourses of personal responsibility, and problematise notions of “fair reciprocity” on which they are premised. We argue their views can be interpreted as supporting alternative notions of shared responsibility for homelessness. These findings have implications for policy and practice and highlight the need to further engage with lived experience perspectives to advance more effective and socially just responses to homelessness in Australia.

Understanding How Young People Exit Homelessness in Australia: A Critical Realist Approach

ABSTRACT Despite years of policy attention and increasing intervention, the numbers of young people experiencing homelessness in Australia continue to increase. Previous meta-theoretical approaches to understanding homelessness amongst young people are largely unable to explain the conditions which enable young people to exit homelessness and maintain stable housing. We put forward Critical Realism as a way of overcoming the limitations of the main approaches which have been used to date: Empiricism, Interpretivism, and Interactionism/Epidemiology. The meta-theoretical assumptions made by Critical Realism can allow researchers to more robustly explain what enables young people to exit homelessness and maintain stable housing by identifying what it is about the structures and mechanisms, or the absence of these structures and mechanisms, which leads to this outcome. By using a Critical Realist approach, we hope to be able to contribute to more robust explanations of how young people exit homelessness and maintain housing.

More than a house: Women's recovery from homelessness inAustralia.

Recovery from homelessness for women is often a long, complex and highly individualised journey. This study investigated women's experiences of exiting homelessness and examined the factors that influenced recovery. The qualitative interpretive study involved auto-driven photo elicitation and in-depth interviews with 11 women who had previously been homeless. It took place in Australia between August 2018 and August 2019. Women took photographs that represented their experiences of exiting homelessness to guide discussion during interviews. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that recovery from homelessness involves more than becoming housed. Recovery from homelessness is the overarching theme being presented, described using five subthemes: Finding the right house, Making a house a home, Connection, Building confidence and Helping others. Housing was only the starting point for recovery from homelessness for women. The women drew on their own self determination to create factors necessary for recovery from the experience of homelessness. We conclude that ongoing support is necessary to empower and assist women recovering from the traumatic experiences of homelessness. Trauma-informed care offers service providers a framework for supporting women who have lived through homelessness. Services can draw on this framework to provide support beyond the point of securing a house and assist women to create a home environment, build confidence in themselves and form connections to their community as they transition out of homelessness.

A critical realist methodology in empirical research: foundations, process, and payoffs

ABSTRACT This article describes and evaluates the application of an explicitly critical realist methodology to a quantitative doctoral research project on the causes of family homelessness in Australia. It is offered as an example of a critical realist approach to empirical research, in the hope that it will provide ideas and motivation to other scholars seeking a critical realist foundation to their research practice. The paper demonstrates the role of critical realism in informing and defining the analytical and theoretical approach I took. It shows how the philosophy influenced the foundations and practical development of my work. It describes the process of moving from empirical data to theoretical models by stepping through and describing each stage. Finally, I offer an assessment of how critical realism changed, enabled, improved, and liberated my project; that is, what advantage critical realism offered to explaining a complex social phenomenon and crisis in contemporary Australia.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual homelessness in Australia: Risk and resilience factors to consider in policy and practice.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people are more likely than heterosexual people to experience homelessness. The study aimed to compare risk and resilience factors commonly associated with homelessness according to sexual identity to inform more LGB-inclusive and targeted policy and service provision in this area. The study involved analysis of data from two Australian surveys: the General Social Survey 2014 (n=17,401) and the Journeys Home study (n=1,659). Chi-squared analyses of the survey data compared LGB with heterosexual respondents. Bisexual respondents had a significantly earlier average age of first homelessness, and were more likely to have repeated episodes of homelessness than lesbian, gay or heterosexual respondents. Risk factors that were higher among bisexual people included family violence, conflict and rejection and substance use issues. LGB respondents were twice as likely to have experienced discrimination as heterosexual respondents, more likely to have experienced violence and have mental health problems. Conversely, resilience factors for LGB respondents included being more likely to access friends for support in times of crisis, and to be involved in civic or political groups. We suggest that LGB people at risk of homelessness need effective responses based on their risk and resilience factors, including targeted peer support and mainstream services that affirm and acknowledge their diverse sexual identities. Australian policies should encourage improved LGB data collection and specific service responses. Primary prevention approaches include educating families of origin about LGB identities and assertive outreach to prevent housing loss.