Chapter Four: Improving and expanding services to end homelessness
Key points
- People who are homeless have contact with mainstream services that have a responsibility to identify homelessness and actively respond.
- Specialist homelessness services are an effective way to deliver crisis and ongoing support, and provide expertise on homelessness.
- Specialist homelessness services cannot deliver the entire homelessness response. The best outcomes for people who are homeless will be achieved if specialist and mainstream services work together closely.
- Services should operate so that there are ‘no wrong doors’ for people who are homeless and seeking help.
- All services that work with people who are homeless should focus on getting people into stable long-term housing, employment and training, or other community participation.
- A workforce development strategy is needed so that there are sufficient people with the right skills to work actively with clients to end their homelessness.
- A strong legislative base must remain in place to underpin the national homelessness response, set standards and deliver the best quality services possible for people who are homeless.
People who are vulnerable to homelessness are faced with many difficulties and they typically interact with multiple service systems at any one time and over time.
People who are homeless often experience considerable frustration with the broader social service system, describing it as ‘having their time wasted because of misinformation’ and ‘getting the run around’.69
A family experiencing homelessness may need crisis accommodation, immediate help from Centrelink and family counselling. They may also be grappling with legal issues arising from domestic violence, financial problems or mental health issues. School children may need extra help to deal with disruption to education or settle into a new school, or counselling to deal with the impact of witnessing domestic violence.
People are generally expected to find their own way to the right services - through a complex and disconnected service system. They often need to tell their stories over and over again.
Improving the response of mainstream services
A repeated theme of submissions to the Green Paper was the need to improve the response of mainstream services to people who are homeless. This will in many cases prevent people becoming homeless – by catching them early. It will also reduce demand for specialist homelessness services by helping those mainstream services work more effectively with people – who despite best efforts – do become homeless and require assistance from specialist homelessness services.70
Mainstream services – as critical ‘first to know’ agencies - include:
- state and territory housing authorities
- Centrelink
- universal employment services
- schools and other education and training services
- health services, including hospitals, mental health and drug and alcohol services
- legal, policing, correctional and juvenile justice systems
- family and children’s services, including child protection services and immigration programs
- aged care services
To substantially reduce homelessness and achieve the high level outcomes agreed to by all governments under the National Affordable Housing Agreement these services must all work better together.
Mainstream services must also significantly improve their connections with specialist homelessness services to prevent people falling into homelessness.
The Australian Government will lead this effort by improving collaboration in areas where it funds or operates mainstream services. The Government will review the way that Centrelink and employment service providers define and share information about people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
The Australian Government will work with state and territory governments to develop state and regional homelessness action plans to improve collaboration between mainstream services and homelessness services. These plans will include mechanisms for cross-agency case assessments, case management and case planning as well as service protocols which will improve the way services are delivered to the client. It will stop people who are homeless falling through the gaps.
Service protocols have operated successfully in some states and territories between specialist homelessness services and other services such as mental health services or hospitals.
Ten-year action plans have been implemented overseas, most notably in the United States, to integrate the efforts of government, business, the not-for-profit sector and the community to reduce homelessness at a regional level. The Interagency Council on Homelessness in the United States has worked to develop homelessness action plans in 300 cities as a way to integrate homelessness strategies.71
Some states and territories have implemented homelessness action plans at state and/or regional levels. These will serve as good practice examples for their wider implementation across Australia.
Successful system reform is often achieved incrementally and is driven by people on the ground doing the work but supported by high-level administrative reforms and new investment.72 Flexible funding could be provided at the regional level to bring critical homelessness sector stakeholders together to deliver integrated service responses.
On the ground, improved collaboration between services will mean that there will be ‘no wrong door’ into the service system for a person who is homeless. There will be multiple entry points to services: any entry point will be the right entry point for people who are homeless to be assessed and receive appropriate assistance.
Features of a ‘no wrong door’ system will include:
- mainstream services assessing the housing needs of clients
- specialist homelessness services assessing other needs beyond housing like education and employment needs of clients
- strong service networks and agreements between all human service providers at a local level
- joint assessment, planning, coordination and case management
- sharing information about clients.
Improving specialist homelessness services
Specialist homelessness services are an effective way both to deliver crisis and ongoing support.
The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) funded jointly by the Australian and state and territory governments comprises a network of 1,500 specialist homelessness services. Funding for specialist homelessness services will continue under the National Affordable Housing Agreement which replaces the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program V Agreement and commences on 1 January 2009.
The primary focus for specialist homelessness services is to provide supported accommodation for the chronically homeless or those who were temporarily homeless as a result of crisis.73
New approaches have evolved over the time the program has been in existence and there are many examples of innovative and good practice. Many specialist homelessness services deliver prevention and early intervention programs; some deliver outreach support to clients in transitional housing; others deliver longer-term outreach to clients who have been stabilised in permanent housing.
There will always be a need for a crisis response to homelessness – particularly for people whose safety is at risk.
At the same time, it is unrealistic to expect specialist homelessness services to deliver the whole response to homelessness.
Specialist homelessness services cannot meet the demand for their services. A survey conducted by the Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) Homeless Persons Legal Clinic reported that 74 per cent of those surveyed had at some time been refused crisis or transitional accommodation by a service provider; in 58 per cent of cases this was due to lack of beds.74
Finding sustainable long-term housing for clients of specialist homelessness services has proved difficult. Services have often found it hard to broker the wide range of services that many people who are homeless need to support them to become stable.
Despite the many challenges specialist homelessness services have continued doing more with less: between 2005-06 and 2006-07 the number of support periods each day by SAAP services rose by 28.2 per cent to 48,200, yet real funding increased by only 9 per cent.75
SAAP data suggests that to achieve long-term reductions in homelessness, the response to homelessness must go beyond that delivered by specialist homelessness services.
It is clear that the best outcomes for people who are homeless will be achieved if specialist and mainstream services are highly integrated.
Specialist homelessness services must build strong working partnerships with each other and with mainstream services. They must connect clients to mainstream programs such as housing, health services and employment services that can deliver ongoing support, improve outcomes for clients and reduce the likelihood of homelessness happening again.
The approach agreed to by COAG under the National Affordable Housing Agreement is designed to provide greater flexibility in the way services are delivered. This means that specialist homelessness services will be able to transition some clients more quickly out of crisis services into permanent housing and be able to work for longer periods with those clients who need more intensive, longer-term support.
The Australian Government will work with the states and territories to establish a ‘case-mix’ pilot trial to better quantify the actual costs of supporting high-needs clients and test whether additional outcome-based performance payments can improve both employment and housing outcomes for people who are homeless.
The trial will identify those people who have a higher level of complexity requiring longer-term and more intensive coordinated support. The trial will identify a best practice approach (including the skills needed) to providing this support.
Improving coordination and installing information technology systems that allow for real-time data exchange across specialist homelessness services will also improve utilisation of existing capacity within the specialist homelessness services system and enable better deployment of services to meet demand. For example, it would mean people were less likely to be turned away with nowhere to go while there is a vacancy in another service.
Improving information technology support across the specialist homelessness service sector would reduce the amount of time services spend on collecting and holding data and reporting to government. It would also facilitate inter-agency referrals, provide a platform for enhanced case management and provide services with much better information about client outcomes.
This is discussed further in Chapter Five.
Addressing homelessness in rural and remote areas
Despite common perceptions, rates of homelessness are higher in rural and remote areas: 62 per cent of rough sleepers in the 2006 Census count were located in rural and remote areas.76
Policies and programs on homelessness must be designed to respond to the distinct challenges faced in rural and remote communities.77 There is under investment in services in rural and regional Australia.
The Australian Government will work with the states and territories to review the current distribution of specialist homelessness services against the geographic distribution of people who are homeless, particularly those sleeping rough.
The review will take into account the extent to which the existing service network is able to meet the changing profile of people who are homeless in Australia, particularly the increasing numbers of children who are homeless and the rising numbers of older people who are homeless.
While rural and regional communities often have the strongest history of joined-up and coordinated service approaches, many submissions to the Green Paper identified the need for improved service integration in these communities.
Local governments, in rural and regional areas, are becoming increasingly involved in providing services to people who are homeless. Some local governments have shown strong leadership capability, partnering directly with state and territory governments and business to deliver affordable housing opportunities and homelessness prevention services.78 It is clear that local governments will play an increasing role in responding to homelessness.
Developing a workforce strategy
To increase the capacity and diversity of the service response, creative ways of developing a high-quality workforce, retaining and attracting staff, and improving and enhancing career paths in the current employment market must be identified.
Primary responsibility for pay and conditions of homelessness service workers rests with state and territory governments, with most employed under state-based Social and Community Services awards.
Critical issues that need to be addressed include low wages, lack of career progression, high staff turnover, low skilled staff, an ageing workforce, casualisation of the workforce, and significant workload stress. Difficulties in attracting young people to the human services field, and in retaining staff affect the ability of services to deliver quality outcomes for clients. 79,80 In order to reduce homelessness, the workforce must be adequately trained and well resourced.81 The SAAP IV Evaluation Report found that, in all SAAP reviews, increasing staff salaries had clear benefits for the quality of services provided.82
A key priority is to address the need for increased skills and competency in specialist homelessness services to achieve sustainable outcomes for people with high and complex needs.
The Australian Government, with state and territory governments, will consider the development of ‘advanced practitioners’ within the awards covering employees in specialist homelessness services.
Provision of specialist workers and resources to meet the needs of children experiencing homelessness is discussed in Chapter Five.
The challenges affecting the homelessness sector workforce are shared with the broader community sector.
The Australian Government, as part of its social inclusion agenda, is developing a new and stronger relationship with the not-for-profit sector, based on partnership and respect. A consultation process is currently under way with a view to developing a National Compact with the sector on working together to improve and strengthen working relationships.
The Australian Government commissioned the Australian Council of Social Services to consult and canvass the views of its members and other organisations.
Developing agreed national accreditation and service standards and service charters for people who are homeless
National service charters for mainstream services and accreditation for funded specialist homelessness services will lead to a service system that maintains high-quality service delivery and has appropriately skilled and qualified staff.83 It will also help develop partnerships that encourage consistency and best practice service delivery across the sector.84
A national service standards and accreditation system that focuses on quality improvement will contribute to:
- placing clients at the centre of the response in both the mainstream and homelessness service settings85
- a greater ability to attract and retain a highly trained, multi-skilled and well-educated workforce86
- career paths for the workforce, with skills and expertise that are easily transferable within the sector87
- continuous service improvement to ensure that clients receive a service offer focussing on achieving sustainable housing and employment outcomes
- stronger connections between government, business and non-government services.
State and territory governments implement service standards with varying degrees of success. Service standards in Victoria focus on improving service integration. Service standards encourage specialist homelessness services to work collaboratively with agencies and across programs.88 As a result, strong partnerships have been formed with mental health and community care divisions, housing, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Correctional Services Commissioner.89
In Victoria, all services must undergo a pre-accreditation process in which service delivery is assessed against the Homelessness Assistance Service Standards, providing evidence that high-quality service performance has been achieved. Formal accreditation is then obtained through an external body, which conducts on-site accreditation reviews every three years.
This model is similar to aged care and childcare accreditation models. In each case, an external agency visits service providers and conducts reviews to determine whether services comply with sector-specific standards and actively implement service improvements.
The Australian Government and state and territory governments will work with homelessness services and people who are homeless to develop national homelessness service standards and a system for accrediting services focused on improving quality.
In considering how a national system could be developed and encouraged, approaches such as adoption of service charters in legislation and making accreditation a prerequisite for funding may be useful options. Incentives could be made available to accredited services that actively engage in staff training and education.
New legislation to cover service provision to people who are homeless
The Australian Government will enact new legislation to ensure that people who are homeless receive quality services and adequate support. In addition, service standards encouraging best practice and achievement of outcomes would be set out in the legislation, ensuring national consistency and quality of the services offered to people experiencing homelessness. The best features of the Supported Accommodation Assistance Act 1994 and the Disability Services Act 1986 would be incorporated into new legislation on homelessness.
This legislation is discussed further in Chapter Seven.
Where we will start:
- Improve collaboration between mainstream and specialist homelessness services.
- Develop a shared definition of homelessness.
- Build a national service system where there are ‘no wrong doors’
- Improve service integration through improved IT systems.
- Test new funding models for specialist homelessness services that reflect the costs of delivering services to clients with complex needs.
- Encourage the use of local and regional action plans, with particular focus on service connections.
- Address homelessness in rural and remote areas.
- Work towards developing advanced practitioner positions in specialist homelessness services.
- Develop agreed national accreditation, service standards and service charters for people who are homeless.
- Enact new legislation to ensure people who are homeless receive quality services.