The Prime Minister's Council on Homelessness met in Sydney for the ninth time on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 May 2011. Ms Bev Manton, Chair of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, was welcomed as an official member of the Council. The agenda over the two days provided the Council with the opportunity to discuss a number of policy implementation issues that are essential to achieving the Government's targets for reducing homelessness. The Council was pleased to welcome the participation of Senator the Hon Mark Arbib, Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness, on Friday 13 May. The key agenda items discussed are outlined below.
Indigenous Housing and Homelessness
Indigenous Australians are over represented in the population experiencing homelessness and made up 18 per cent of all clients in Specialist Homelessness Services in 2009-2010 whilst representing only two per cent of the general Australian population. Of additional concern is the high incidence of overcrowding experienced by Indigenous Australians.
Mr Roger Barson, General Manager of Aboriginal Hostels Limited, attended the Council meeting to brief members on the operations of the company, and the opportunities and issues associated with hostel-style accommodation. The Council found the presentation most informative and have requested that Mr Barson attend a future meeting. At this meeting the potential of using Aboriginal hostels to contribute to a reduction in Indigenous homelessness will be discussed as well as possible “hostel type” models that could be used to contribute to reducing homelessness for other Australians.
Rough Sleeping
People sleeping rough remains a priority area of the Council and reduction in numbers of this cohort will be a key indicator of the success of homelessness reforms. The Council considered a trend profile of people sleeping rough and is developing a set of principles to guide the development of programs and policy to reduce the numbers of homeless people sleeping rough and meet the targets identified for 2013. These principles will include:
- The importance of assertive outreach;
- Fast tracking appropriate housing;
- Support a more holistic service response, particularly focussing on health;
- Services need to have skilled practitioners – build in progressive assessments; and
- People sleeping rough require longer term support.
Support for out-of-home care leavers
The high rate of homelessness experienced by young people leaving out of home care in their first year of living independently is of great concern to the Council. The Council feels reductions in homelessness amongst this group of young people will not be achieved unless more is done to ensure young people leaving care are supported to obtain and maintain stable accommodation post care and be engaged in education and training.
Representatives from the CREATE Foundation and the National Youth Coalition on Housing attended the meeting to discuss what effective and pragmatic responses may look like. The CREATE Foundation's recent report Transitioning from Care in Australia notes that 68.3 per cent of care leavers, surveyed in 2010, were not aware of the existence of a leaving care plan. A lack of planning for those exiting care is leaving young people without appropriate support.
The Council is aware that the implementation of exit, transitioning and post care support programs will require substantial resources and also understands that state and territory child protection systems are large and diverse, which limits the Commonwealth's influence. However, we feel that an issue of this enormity and seriousness deserves ongoing Commonwealth attention.
Building the evidence base
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a discussion paper on the Methodological Review of Counting the Homeless, 2006 in March this year. Council will provide feedback to the ABS review as well as engaging in further discussions with the ABS.
Professor Mark Wooden, from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research, and Mr Edmond Hsu, from the Evidence and Planning Branch FaHCSIA, briefed the Council on Journeys Home the Longitudinal Study of Factors Affecting Housing Stability. The Council is confident the data from the study will be useful in gaining a clearer, empirical understanding of the causes of homelessness and would value further briefing on the study at key points.
Ms Desley Hargreaves, National Manager, Social Work Services, Centrelink provided the Council with a presentation on the first 12 months of operation of the Homelessness Indicator. The Indicator is not intended to be a headcount but rather an opportunity to gain information that will be helpful in supporting service delivery. The Council welcomed the Centrelink Homelessness Indicator and acknowledged that additional work needs to be undertaken to ensure the robustness of the indicator to inform future policy and service delivery options.
Philanthropy
Social Ventures Australia presented a report on engaging the business sector in responding to homelessness. A key point from the report was that while the business sector may be keen to be involved in preventing homelessness they often do not know how they can contribute in relation to social policy areas such as reducing homelessness. Council members will discuss this issue further, to be able to provide advice to Senator the Hon Mark Arbib, Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness, with the aim of expanding the philanthropic connections between businesses, governments at all levels and homelessness sector service providers.
Budget announcements
The Council welcomes the 2011/2012 Budget and acknowledges there are a number of announcements which will assist people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
The Council welcomes the 12 month extension of the viability supplement for aged care providers who are providing services to older people who are homeless. The acknowledgement that the proposed Aged Care Funding Instrument may leave specialist aged care providers financially worse off is timely.
Funding intended to prevent exits from hospitals into homelessness under the new National Partnership Agreement on Mental Health implements the “no exits into homelessness” strategy in the White Paper on Homelessness The Road Home, and will provide much needed support for peoplewho are experiencing severely disabling and persistent mental illness to break the cycle ofhomelessness.
The expansion of headspace by another 30 centres, bringing the total to 90 centres across Australia is recognised and the Council is pleased the Federal Government has recognised the importance of intervening early with mental health problems.The Council have written to Mr Chris Tanti, CEO of headspace, to offer our support in the further evolution and the design of the headspace business model to ensure that all services are catering for disadvantaged young people.
The next Council meeting is scheduled for late July in Adelaide.