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Ex-Prisoners, SAAP, Housing and Homelessness in Australia

Results of interviews with staff of SAAP funded agencies

Agency consent

Each of the agencies participating in this study has provided written consent to being identified in this report as a participating agency. References to specific agencies have nonetheless been kept to a minimum and particular agencies have been identified only where doing so was considered reasonably necessary for clarification and understanding of the material presented.

Nature of the participating agencies

It is important to note that the six agencies participating in this research represent only a very small proportion of the nearly 1300 SAAP funded agencies in Australia. These were agencies that responded to requests for agencies to be involved in the research and it appears that in most cases their willingness to be involved was at least partly linked to a specific interest or focus on ex-prisoner clients. In this sense the agencies are not representative of the much larger group of SAAP agencies that do not provide services to ex-prisoner clients, or are not necessarily mindful of the presence of ex-prisoners amongst their client group.

The agencies participating in this research only represent some of the service delivery models operating under SAAP. Most of the participating agencies are identified in SAAP administrative data as operating under multiple service delivery models, including accommodation (of varying duration from crisis/short-term to longer-term), daily living support, advice and advocacy and general assistance. One of the agencies operates a medium-longer term accommodation service delivery model, one operates a day support model and one operates an outreach service delivery model alongside its multiple service model.

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Two of the agencies are identified in SAAP data as having single men as a primary target group, even though one of these agencies also operates a women's accommodation and support service which also assists women and children escaping domestic violence. Two agencies are shown with families as their primary target group. The remaining two agencies are indicated as having a 'general' primary target group, even though one appears to primarily target single men and also operates a women's service.

The agencies are not in this sense representative of those that operate under more specific accommodation models, or those that concentrate on service delivery models that do not incorporate accommodation. For example, while one agency in this study operated under a day support model and one partly operated under an outreach model, these two agencies cannot be representative of the much larger group of agencies operating under these service delivery models or under models such as telephone referral or those agencies that provide support to, and representation of, other agencies. Nor are these agencies representative of those targeting young people or indeed, given the small numbers involved, representative of the broader group of agencies with common target groups.

Due to time and resource constraints for this project, and the need for involvement by SAAP agencies who were willing and able to devote time and resources to the project, it was not intended that the interviews conducted in this study would be representative of the broader SAAP sector. Rather, it was hoped that the interviews with agency staff and clients would provide insight into some of the issues faced by ex-prisoner clients and agencies which deal with ex-prisoner clients. The findings could then feed into directions for future research.

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Challenges in providing services to ex-prisoner clients

During the interviews, staff were asked what they saw as the major challenges in providing services to ex-prisoners, both to the individuals and to the agency. They were asked firstly about the challenges in providing accommodation services and were then asked a follow-up question about the challenges in providing other, non-accommodation services such as employment assistance or financial management support. Staff were then asked how these challenges were different from those affecting other client groups.

Across the set of interviews, the answers given to these questions tended to crossover and intersect with one another. In some cases it was not necessarily possible to separate the challenges arising in accommodation services with those arising in other services. For those agencies servicing only ex-prisoners or other criminal justice system clients, the question of differences in the challenges was not applicable while for others many of the challenges were structural and not necessarily related to the characteristics of the client. In reporting on the themes emerging from this part of the interview it is therefore more appropriate and meaningful to seek to categorise the themes arising across the set of questions.

Structural challenges

Accommodation supply and public housing waiting lists

Agencies were consistent in seeing a lack of available and affordable accommodation options as a major challenge to addressing homelessness among ex-prisoners. Demand was seen as continuously exceeding supply.

While agencies were generally positive about the efforts made by state housing organisations, particularly operational staff within these organisations, they also highlighted problems arising from decreases in public housing stocks. This was perceived as a problem in a number of states.

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It is interesting that during the period the interviews were being conducted, an article appeared in the Adelaide Advertiser (2/12/2003: 17) about the decline in public housing availability in that state. The article noted that 5,624 properties had been sold from public housing stocks in the six years to the end of 2002/03. Only 904 new properties had been built by the Housing Trust between 2000/01 and 2003/04. The article also noted that 9,000 new applications for public housing were lodged in 2002/03 while the waiting list for housing reached 26,670 in that year. The South Australian Housing Minister was quoted in that article as saying that properties were being sold to meet budgetary shortfalls arising from the Commonwealth diverting funding from subsidising public housing to providing rental assistance, and a 30 percent reduction in grants over the last decade.

One reason for the decline in public housing stocks appears to be the redevelopment of urban areas, particularly inner suburbs. In many areas old housing, some of which is public housing, is being removed to make away for new, typically high cost, residential accommodation. Even where public housing agencies have plans to replace this housing with new stock there is usually a considerable period of time before stock is replaced. This problem may be compounded where city councils move to 'clean up' city centres by moving homeless people and other 'social problems' away from the public view. This can lead to a congregation of disadvantaged people in particular city fringe areas, straining services in those areas.

Reductions in the relative supply levels of public housing are one of the factors resulting in very long waiting lists for public housing. For those not meeting the criteria for priority housing, waiting lists appear to typically be in the order of several years. To be able to access public housing within a shorter period of time, clients need to be eligible for the category having the highest priority. Definitions of the highest priority category and its eligibility criteria vary from one jurisdiction to another, but generally require clients to have been homeless for a period of around two years or be experiencing other significant aspects of disadvantage, such as having a disability. In some jurisdictions it can be very hard for ex-prisoners to achieve highest priority eligibility. Some jurisdictions consider imprisonment as stable housing, and therefore consider that the required period of homelessness only begins when the person is released from prison. In other cases, the documentation and verification requirements are particularly onerous and make it very difficult for ex-prisoner clients to establish eligibility and enter waiting lists.

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A separate challenge faced by agencies in relation to public housing relates to clients who fall behind in their rent. In some cases staff have put in considerable effort to work with housing agency staff securing accommodation only to see the client fall behind in rent and be evicted. This creates a cycle where the agency again has to try and work with the housing organisation to place the client back in housing. It would be preferable for support staff if they had more opportunity to work with the housing organisation to ensure the client remains in housing and solutions are found to resolve the rent problems. One staff member noted that there was nothing more soul destroying for a supported accommodation worker than to apply intense support to a client, phase this down to medium support, have the client placed in public housing and achieve stability, only to have the client encounter a problem and return to the beginning of the support process again.

It is not just public or community housing shortages that serve to restrict access to exit points. A number of staff members referred to rising private rental prices as a significant barrier to any person on a limited income accessing the private rental market. This added another layer of difficulty to the problems already experienced by ex-prisoners trying to overcome stigmatisation problems and secure private rental accommodation, as discussed elsewhere in this report.

A major issue in Bunbury, WA is a lack of private boarding house accommodation resulting from redevelopment similar to that affecting public housing stocks. An area of town adjoining the city centre which had previously held a number of boarding houses has been redeveloped in recent years with much of the area now taken up with luxury housing. Options for disadvantaged people in Bunbury are now very limited, with only one boarding house remaining in the city. While this problem was unique within this study, it is likely being experienced in similar ways in many regional areas of Australia. Staff in one of the capital cities also noted that many of the cheap boarding houses in that city were being renovated and priced out of the reach of people on low incomes.

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It is interesting to note that the redevelopment issue in Bunbury was also having implications for the service itself, which was facing a possible loss of its site of operations to make way for a newer development.

Shortages of long-term affordable housing and waiting periods mean that support agencies must find ways of providing accommodation in the medium-term until appropriate exit points can be found. This can put a considerable strain on agency resources which rely on clients exiting into external long-term housing to allow other clients to enter their programs. The ability of clients to exit from supported accommodation is also important for the clients themselves as this represents a significant milestone in their progress.

Agency resources

The availability of ongoing funding and the ability to procure appropriate resources are significant issues for agencies in this sector. These issues are likely not specific to the accommodation sector and it is expected that all social welfare agencies would be experiencing similar problems. However these are issues of major concern to the ability of agencies to provide effective outcomes for ex-prisoner clients and

therefore it is important to include mention of it in this report. It is also important because of the way in which appropriate support appears to very significantly affect the prospects for ex-prisoners re-entering the community and therefore the way in which it affects outcomes for the criminal justice system and the community overall.

Concerns about resources fell into two major categories, accommodation resources and staffing resources. Agencies overall felt they needed to have more accommodation properties, and a greater variety of properties, to be able to place clients into. This would allow the agency to service a greater number of clients and thereby come closer to addressing the imbalance between supply and demand. It would also allow greater flexibility in placing clients appropriately as clients could be better matched in shared accommodation. This would help to address the problem of having to cater to clients across an age range from 18 to over 60, who were at different points of the criminality continuum. It would also mean that more clients could be housed individually where this was appropriate or necessary.

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In this sense, it is noteworthy that a number of staff saw loneliness as an issue for some clients, especially if they have just come from being continuously surrounded by large numbers of people in prison. This can be short-term, resulting from the dramatic change in environment between a correctional institution and a house in the community. It can also be longer-term, with one staff member noting that the goal of independent living can be problematic for some clients for whom independence can result in social isolation. Responding to problems of loneliness and isolation may involve being able to place the client in appropriate shared accommodation, or giving the client extra support to cope with this aspect of change.

At the same time, staff have found that some clients need space and independence so are better suited to living independently or with just one other person, while some clients such as sex offenders may not be safe in a shared situation. One worker saw the ideal scenario as all clients being in single accommodation as this encourage clients to stabilise and sort their lives out but this was not necessarily a view shared by other workers.

It is apparent that the best way to address the question of whether an individual needs shared or single accommodation is for an agency to have sufficient resources available to be able to make flexible decisions that respond to individual needs.

The other resource concern was in the area of staffing, with a number of agencies expressing the need for more workers to properly meet support needs. Agencies have had to find ways around this problem, such as CRC which has had to create a position of women's support worker from existing resources to meet the gap in this area of service provision, or in other cases where existing staff have simply had to accept a greater burden to meet clients' needs.

Some agencies note however that resource limitations mean they have no choice but to simply refuse support and assistance to a lot of potential clients because they do not have enough beds or other resources available.

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Accessing other services

Staff in a number of agencies saw accessing services offered by other agencies as problematic, both for themselves and for clients. Staff suggested that while their networks with other agencies, particularly at the individual level, were very good and other agencies worked hard to provide the best services they could, staff were constrained by resource issues and lack of information about other services.

Staff in some agencies felt there was simply a lack of other alternative services available, either to meet particular needs their own agency did not address or to cope with levels of demand that exceeded their resources. The question of particular gaps in service is addressed later in this report. Some staff felt that while there were no particular gaps in service, and there were Government or non-Government services available to meet the needs, clients did not necessarily know about them. There was a perception of a lack of knowledge about services among clients, though it is not necessarily easy to determine whether this was due to individuals not being able to access information, or choosing not to access it.

Some staff felt there was also a lack of information among staff and agencies themselves. One staff member said he had been surprised a number of times to 'stumble across' agencies providing services which his clients could have used in the past, except that he was not aware that the service existed. This staff member found this particularly surprising given his lengthy experience in the sector and otherwise very effective information networks.

Accessing other agencies can be very frustrating for clients, particularly when they are 'shunted around' from one agency to another and have to access a number of agencies to meet basic needs, such as needing different agencies for accommodation, food, fares and transportation and clothing. This was not an issue for those agencies providing individually case managed and intensive support able to meet all these needs. For other agencies, the need for clients to access multiple services was not only frustrating but created the potential for abuse of the system, where clients accessing separate services from different agencies could also access duplicated services.

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Staff in affected agencies saw the need for greater communication between agencies providing related services, possibly in the form of an integrated client database, to address problems of service abuse but recognised the considerable resource, infrastructure and privacy issues that would arise.

Another suggestion was that the sector aim to have greater co-location of community services, ideally so that all services a client might need were within walking distance of each other. Release dates

A number of staff indicated difficulties with planning services due to vagaries in prisoner release dates. In many cases prisoners will not know in advance whether they are going to be released on their parole eligibility dates. Even when agencies are working with prisoners in the time before they are released, it may be diffi cult to establish accurately when a prisoner is going to be released. In many cases agencies

must allocate beds in anticipation of parole being granted and may then be stuck with an unallocated bed, that could have been given to another potential client, if parole is refused.

The uncertainty surrounding release dates can also create frustrations for the prisoners themselves who are hampered in their ability to even attempt to arrange accommodation in advance of their release.

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Client-related challenges

Much of the challenge for agencies comes from the specific characteristics and needs of their clients, and the particular issues the clients face in trying to re-enter or establish themselves in the community. Some of these issues are specific to ex-prisoners while others relate more generally to people facing homelessness.

Stigmatisation

Many staff members saw stigmatisation and labelling as a major problem confronting ex-prisoner clients. They saw that ex-prisoners may be treated differently by real estate agencies, landlords or employers with opportunities for accommodation or employment being cut off once the person's criminal record became known. Ex-prisoners may also be treated differently by others in the community and face problems establishing social relationships. This could become an issue for agencies offering shared accommodation to both 'mainstream' and ex-prisoner clients, with clients who had not been to prison sometimes refusing to be accommodated with ex-prisoners. This then impacted on the agencies' deployment of their limited accommodation resources.

Stigmatisation creates significant challenges for agencies which must nonetheless help clients find longer-term sustainable housing, despite many possible avenues of accommodation being cut-off from them. This is also the case with employment, and while assistance with securing employment is in some ways a separate issue to accommodation, the two are very closely inter-related. Some staff contended that accommodation and employment were the two most important and fundamental issues for people re-entering the community. As one worker put it, ongoing employment is the key to independent living, which is the best outcome for most, if not all, services. Other workers noted that being employed tends to put clients in a different and more positive peer group, while another noted the very positive influences one employed client in a shared house or hostel can have on other residents.

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The experience of stigmatisation and labelling can also be damaging to clients' self-esteem and their willingness to persist with the sometimes difficult process of re-entering the community. In interviews with clients, many of them talked about feeling like they had walked out of prison 'with a sign on their heads' and were very conscious of being treated differently in the community. How much of this differential treatment genuinely occurred and how much was perception is probably irrelevant, as perceptions of ill-treatment can themselves be highly damaging, and are magnified by any genuine ill-treatment.

Agency staff report that problems of stigmatisation and self-esteem deficits that result from it can be very persistent. Ex-prisoner clients know that their offending and imprisonment history will remain with them and affect all their social relations for many years to come. Ex-prisoners often do not feel a part of the mainstream community, to the point of feeling a total detachment from the community. Staff of one agency suggested that those who come to feel entirely detached are the same group of ex-prisoners, some 70 per cent of those leaving prison, who ultimately end up returning to the criminal justice system and often back into social welfare assistance.

It is partly due to these feelings of detachment that many former prisoners tend to gravitate towards associations with other former prisoners. While this can lead to problems as indicated elsewhere, it can also provide supportive benefits. Compared to others in the community, former prisoners are more likely to be non-judgemental and accepting of other former prisoners and more understanding of the issues they face.

It is important to note that the stigmatisation, prejudice and differential treatment experienced by ex-prisoners are experienced even more strongly by Indigenous ex-prisoners, who face discrimination due to their cultural status as well as their criminal history. Indigenous people are also relatively more likely to be coming from severely disadvantaged backgrounds and may have been victims of family violence or sexual assault. Given the over-representation of Indigenous people in our correctional systems, the difficulties faced by Indigenous ex-prisoners cannot be underestimated.

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Blacklisting

In some ways related to the problem of stigmatisation, staff often found efforts to assist clients into private rental accommodation difficult as clients have been 'blacklisted' as a result of previous tenancy problems. Clients may be listed on Internet-based databases as problem tenants and real estate agents or landlords who subscribe to these databases may refer to them when assessing tenancy applications.

While staff did not appear to dispute the rights of landlords and real estate agents to protect their financial interests, they were concerned that clients could be blacklisted without any burden of proof placed on landlords or agents. They contended it can be very difficult for clients to know they are blacklisted, unless they pay to access the service, and they do not get any opportunity to put their side of the story or dispute what may be an unfair listing. Staff noted that it could be almost impossible for clients to get off the blacklist, even if they resolved problems from their former tenancy or had addressed the circumstances that led to the problems. Staff also expressed concerns over whether this information infringed clients' privacy rights.

An examination of the website operated by TICA, which states that it has the largest membership of any online tenancy information service in Australia, shows that tenants can be recorded as having defaulted on a tenancy agreement. There are 14 reasons listed why a tenant may be recorded as being a default tenant, including having rent in arrears, having entered into a payment arrangement or having presented

dishonoured cheques for rental payment. Non-financial reasons for listing include breaching the Residential Tenancy Act, having a Residential Tenancy Tribunal order made against the tenant, failing to provide adequate notice or damaging property. There does not appear to be any discretion between levels of default, such as very minor breaches or minor Tribunal orders which may have occurred alongside orders in the Tenant's favour.

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To comply with privacy requirements, clients can find out if they are listed as default tenants either by writing to TICA, accompanied by a bank cheque or money order payment of $11.00, or by ringing the TICA hotline at a cost of $5.45 per minute (higher from pay phones). A client on a very limited budget may find these costs prohibitive and may not be aware of their right to seek this information.

Where a landlord has listed a person as a default tenant but the landlord does not specify that there is a monetary amount involved, that listing will remain on TICA for three years. After three years the listing will be removed, but only once the landlord has confirmed there is no money owing. If this is confirmed and the default listing removed, the client remains listed on TICA indefinitely with a 'Tenancy History Only' listing. This would strongly suggest to any future landlord there has been a past problem with this tenant. If the landlord does not provide the necessary confirmation it appears the default listing remains indefinitely.

Where a monetary amount is specified to TICA the tenant remains listed as a default tenant for five years from the time the debt is cleared. After five years, the tenant remains listed as 'Tenancy History Only'. Removal of a default listing in this case relies on advice being provided by the landlord of the debt having been cleared. If this advice is not forthcoming, or the debt has not been cleared, the tenant will remain listed as a defaulter indefinitely. The website advises clients it would be in their best interest not to fall into this part of the system.

Any disputes over whether a tenant should be listed on the TICA system can only be resolved by the tenant approaching the landlord to resolve the matter and the landlord advising TICA to remove the listing, or the tenant proving to TICA that the listing was vindictive. To do this a tenant must provide the allegation and proof to TICA who will seek a comment on the allegation from its member landlord. TICA will then determine whether the listing was vindictive.

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Starting over

For many people leaving prison, re-entering the community means starting over from a position of having effectively nothing. As well as not having stable accommodation, ex-prisoners may have no money other than a Centrelink payment, no furniture or household goods and little clothing. Returning to the community, especially after a long term of imprisonment, may be very confusing and disorienting as the person tries to adjust to changes in the community, including changes in infrastructure, transport systems, technology and prices. Ex-prisoners may also have to adjust to changes in community norms and expectations, or changes in Government policy.

For ex-prisoners who are seeking to make a genuine effort towards change, and seeking to address their offending behaviour, starting over may well mean leaving

behind negative past associations. This can be difficult, especially in areas where there is little accommodation available other than in areas of socio-economic disadvantage where clients' negative associations tend to be congregated. While leaving behind past associations may lessen the chances that a client may face temptations or coercion leading to offending behaviour, it also means trying to establish new friendships and social networks as well as adjusting to living in a new area.

Coupled with these challenges is the fact that offenders face considerable financial difficulties on release from prison. Generally they will have barely enough money for basic food and transport and perhaps rent in a shelter or cheap boarding house. Unless they have independent resources they will not have money for rental bonds, gas or electricity bonds or to purchase basic household items. Items like furniture and whitegoods are especially out of reach without financial assistance.

For both support workers and clients, the challenges of starting over can be overwhelming. Threats to a client's self-esteem that come from having no material possessions and no place in society can lead to problems including depression, drug use and a return to old associations. Countering these problems requires clients to have access to adequate agency resources, a variety of types of support and appropriate programs.

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Institutionalisation

Many staff members saw institutionalisation as a major challenge in dealing with ex-prisoner clients. The experience of imprisonment, especially multiple or lengthy periods, can cause prisoners to adjust to life in an institutional setting to the detriment of their capacity to function outside that environment. The prison environment generally involves rigid routines and rules, with strict behavioural controls. Prisoners may find themselves in specific roles within the prison such as having very specific and narrow work responsibilities. Prisoners may also have to adjust their behaviour and perceptions in response to what may be continuous threats of violence from other prisoners, whether overt or otherwise. In a correctional setting, prisoners will generally have no responsibility or discretion in most daily living activities, such as deciding what to eat and when and how to budget or manage finances. Prisoners are also clearly not able to decide, other than within very limited constraints, where and how they will spend their time.

On release from prison, this all changes. Ex-prisoners are faced with an environment without routines and strict rules and where they have to make decisions they may not have made for a long time or, in some cases, ever made at all. Ex-prisoners must learn to manage a very limited budget and manage nutritional and hygiene needs that simply were not an issue for them before. Outside the prison environment, ex-prisoners must learn to relate to the people around them with interactions significantly different from those they needed to get by in dealing with correctional staff and other prisoners. Learning the appropriate balance of trust, suspicion and awareness while maintaining appropriate respect and courtesy can be a challenge for anyone, but even more so when the balances needed for survival in prison can be very different from those expected in the general community.

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Staff report that ex-prisoner clients react to the challenges arising from institutionalisation in different ways. Some clients will maintain immaculate standards of hygiene, cleanliness and tidiness in their home environments while others will tend towards being squalid and unclean and having no regard for their hygiene or home environment. Staff report there tends to be very little middle ground, with most clients falling into one of these two extremes. Other staff report extremes in the demeanour of ex-prisoners, with some being highly subservient and others being rebellious or confrontational, particularly when dealing with authority figures. Some may have developed highly manipulative behaviours while others tend to be very vulnerable and gullible. Some ex-prisoners may have very impaired judgement or a very poor ability to make decisions. Others have an exaggerated fear of failure, or have developed very little tolerance for coping with crisis, through having spent much of their life living on the edge of crisis.

The experience of imprisonment, together with other factors in their lives such as the effect of their offending on close relationships, can also have significant effects on an individual's motivation. Staff report that the experience may lead to some clients being highly motivated to succeed with their re-integration in order to avoid ever going back to prison. On the other hand, some clients give up hope and expect to go back to prison, so do not make any serious efforts towards re-integration. There is also no doubt that some individuals come to see prison as a preferable environment to life in the community and accept deprivation of their liberty in exchange for the comfort of the prison routine, regular meals and not having to make decisions or deal with the challenges of living in the community.

For many ex-prisoners the removal of constraints on their time and activities, coupled with a lack of financial resources, can result in boredom. Responding to boredom can have considerable deleterious effects and may lead to ex-prisoners committing offences to relieve the boredom or returning to old associations which in turn can lead to further offending and drug or alcohol use.

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The effects of institutionalisation may also mean that ex-prisoners do not have basic, daily living skills. Many clients need considerable assistance with budgeting and financial management, especially given their very limited incomes. They may also need assistance with such things as cooking, shopping, cleanliness and other aspects of home maintenance. Where agencies are able to provide intensive levels of support this may include social and recreational activities.

One possible outcome of institutionalisation and the difficulties of adjusting to life outside the institution is that some people may re-offend intentionally to return to prison. Both staff and clients spoke of cases they knew of where ex-prisoners found the safety and structure offered by the prison environment preferable to trying to get by in the community. One worker noted the very high level of fear amongst homeless people forced to live on the streets and who are subject to violence, theft and sexual assault.

A number of staff, as well as several clients, saw half-way houses as one option for dealing with some of the issues arising from institutionalisation as well as a way of increasing options for adapting services to individual needs. Half-way houses were

seen as providing the opportunity to strike a transitional balance in a controlled environment with rules and structure while also allowing a degree of independence and decision making.

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Short-term sentences and community based orders

Of the clients interviewed for this study, it can be loosely stated that those who appeared to have the best prospects for longer-term success and those who were able to access the most beneficial overall support, were those referred to supporting agencies under the terms of a community based order. Involvement with the supporting agency was often a condition of a parole order or a home detention order. These clients were able to receive mandated support and may have been eligible to participate in pre-release programs. Typically they also began receiving support immediately on their release, some being collected at the prison gates by a support worker. Importantly, the immediacy of this support meant that the prisoner was not trying to get by alone during the critical days and weeks after release.

Staff, and clients themselves, felt that potential outcomes were far less positive for ex-prisoners not released under the terms of community based orders. These may be people released after serving a period of remand, or released from court on bail, or released after serving relatively short sentences without a parole period. They may also be people who served longer sentences with a parole period, but who were not release on parole but served their full sentence. In any of these cases, people will be released from custody without any form of prescribed supervision or parameters surrounding where they will live or whether or not they will receive treatment or take part in offending related programs.

While these offenders receive the benefits of greater liberty than those who must live under supervisory conditions, this liberty often comes at a very high price for the individual. Offenders exiting prison without support from an agency, family or appropriate friends, and without accommodation or employment arranged, have to rely largely on themselves to cope with the problems of institutionalisation and the dramatic challenges faced in returning to the community. Ex-prisoners in this situation may not have the means or knowledge to put themselves in contact with welfare agencies or support services.

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While parole or community corrections supervision is part of the corrections system and may be perceived negatively by many prisoners, it does serve to provide a structure to the lives of ex-prisoners and 'forces their hand' to utilise support services, or treatment programs. The parole officer may also provide a valuable form of support, guidance, mentoring and motivation. Many ex-prisoner clients on supervision orders identified their parole officer as an important form of support in their efforts towards community integration.

As noted by a number of staff, as well as clients, the period immediately following release is critical for a released prisoner. During this time a person is highly vulnerable to falling back into associations or activities that may lead to drug or alcohol use, or into situations where temptations or conflicts may result in offending behaviour. The shock of re-entering the community, especially if faced with immediate homelessness and poverty, may be too difficult for a newly released prisoner to adjust to without structured support. Even a period of one day without support can be enough to move an offender inexorably towards a return to imprisonment.

As well as a lack of support, prisoners released without community based orders may experience a range of other difficulties. People may be released from court on bail, or from remand or full-time custody, in areas far from home without money for accommodation or transport. Prisoners in remand or serving short sentences are unlikely to be able to access pre-release programs or fully make use of welfare services within the prison. Yet even a short period in custody can result in the loss of any existing accommodation, employment and possibly familial and personal relationships.

Certainly, not all unsupported or short-term prisoners will re-offend or find themselves in marginalised situations. There were some clients in this study who were able to access support services some time after their release. Some ex-prisoners may receive intensive personal support and still re-offend. One agency noted cases where prisoners had been released having satisfied corrections that they had stable accommodation to go to, only to become homeless a few days later when that accommodation fell through.

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There is nonetheless sufficient evidence from this study to highlight the importance of having immediate, structured support for as many prisoners as possible. While the cost of this support can be very high, it must be balanced by the cost to the criminal justice system and the community by recidivist offending. As one staff member saw it, the justice system expunges its duty of care when care is still required and, he said, there is no doubt a strong link between offending and abandonment of released prisoners by the system.

Mental health issues and complexity of needs

A number of staff identified mental health issues as a major challenge in providing accommodation and other services. Many ex-prisoner clients present with problems such as depression and anxiety while one staff member estimated that 85 per cent of women being supported by her agency have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of domestic violence and abuse. Agencies are not equipped to provide the services needed to deal with these sorts of problems and find specialist mental health services lacking in some areas. Many ex-prisoners also present with intellectual disability issues which can interfere with their ability to deal with daily living problems and integration with the community.

The problem is compounded by the shift of mental health treatment and care responsibilities from institutions to the community. Staff indicate this has placed a great deal more people with mental health problems into situations of homelessness and contact with the criminal justice system and accordingly increased the complexity of servicing the area of homelessness.

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As well as mental health and intellectual disabilities, staff suggested ex-prisoners are more likely than other client groups to present with infectious disease problems and histories of homelessness, abuse and institutionalisation. This was borne out within the limited client group interviewed for this study, a number of who reported childhood sexual abuse, and institutionalisation beginning in young childhood. While other people experiencing homelessness, who are not ex-prisoners, tend to exhibit similar problems they do not necessarily present the range or complexity of problems that workers often find in ex-prisoner clients. Compared with other clients, ex-prisoners are also considered more likely to exhibit high levels of dependence and vulnerability and a lack of family and social networks. The lack of networks is particularly seen among drug users. Ex-prisoners also exhibit high levels of illiteracy.

Transient nature of the client group

Within the area of ex-prisoner homelessness, the population can be highly transient, moving between locations and perhaps in and out of the prison system. In these circumstances it can be difficult to plan long-term interventions, especially counselling interventions. This may mean that a worker does not necessarily get to complete a process of work and must be creative about how to pace and set up interventions.

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Women and children

Women experiencing, or at risk, of homelessness pose an additional set of challenges, especially when they have dependent children. Most women in situations of housing crisis have experienced domestic violence. They may be traumatised by this violence, or it may have contributed to drug use and other problems. For many of these women their only option other than homelessness may be to return to the home and relationship where the domestic violence occurred. If the male perpetrator is in prison or otherwise not living in the home, the women may still have to face the prospect of him returning to the home. It may even be that the man is taken into custody for the assaults he has committed, but then be bailed and released back to the home. One male client in this study reported that this had happened to him and he had no choice but to remain in custody or return to the home where he had been assaulting his wife.

In many areas there is a lack of accommodation options for women leaving prison or escaping violence other than refuges, which some staff see as another form of institution. As women are represented in the prison system in far smaller numbers than men, far fewer resources may be allocated to their welfare. While some staff members reported initiatives and resources had been put in place that had improved the situation for women, and in some cases made it better than that for men, in other jurisdictions agencies faced considerable difficulties in finding suitable accommodation and other supports for female clients.

These difficulties are compounded when the woman has dependent children. While in some respects there are more options for women with children, or they may have greater access to priority public housing, in other respects the problems become even more difficult. Many women lose custody or access to their children when they are imprisoned, even if they are only imprisoned for short periods of time. They may be required to address drug use problems and gain stable accommodation. In one agency staff noted that a number of their clients had experienced a 'vicious cycle' resulting from their children being taken into care while they were in prison. These clients were told they could not have their children back until they found long-term house accommodation. At the same time, the state housing organisation would not allocate the women a house because they did not have the children living with them.

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Individual choices

A challenge voiced by a number of staff, particularly those not directly providing supported accommodation, was dealing with individual choices that militated against working towards establishment in mainstream society. Some staff questioned how to deal with those individuals who had consciously chosen a lifestyle that included welfare dependence or drug-use, or both. While it was not suggested these choices were being made by other than a small proportion of clients, these clients presented challenges the agencies could not easily address.

Another staff member discussed how it was difficult to get clients to take the 'hard road' to sustained lifestyle change, rather than the 'easy road' of welfare dependence.

Conclusions -- challenges in servicing ex-prisoner clients

There is not necessarily anything surprising in the findings that many people face considerable difficulties when leaving prison, and welfare agencies face considerable challenges in supporting them. The challenges that arise in providing services to ex-prisoners are not necessarily unique to this client group, but many of them are. It is apparent that ex-prisoner clients typically have complex needs. They may have extensive histories of disadvantage and institutionalisation and lifestyles that can lead easily into crisis and repeat homelessness or re-offending. The experience of being imprisoned can contribute to problems of institutionalisation and loss of accommodation or property and can lead to discrimination when ex-prisoners try to secure accommodation or employment.

The particular issues that arise with ex-prisoner clients strongly suggest the need for dedicated resources to meet the needs of this client group. These resources should include support workers who understand the particular issues that ex-prisoners present and face, and trained and experienced support workers to respond to these. There is also a need for a range of accommodation options to support the differing needs of individual clients, including those presenting with mental health issues, and to allow flexibility for agencies.

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Clearly these resources exist through the agencies participating in this study, as well as others who were not able to be involved. There is nonetheless a need for greater application of resources, perhaps most appropriately through the expansion of existing agencies that have developed the expertise and knowledge needed to service ex-prisoner clients. Certainly any significant expansion of resources carries with it a significant cost. While this cannot be in any way disregarded, it needs to be balanced against the also very significant direct and indirect costs to the community of re-offending.

The views expressed by staff suggest that there is a need for greater support for people released after serving sentences or periods in remand custody. This could come from within the corrections system, or through external agencies being resourced to access and offer support to a greater proportion of prisoners approaching release.

Either approach would meet some difficult challenges. Aside from the issue of cost and resources, any attempts to intervene with prisoners being released unconditionally could interfere with the sentencing determinations handed down by the court. There is also likely to be a very high proportion of prisoners who have no interest in receiving support, or who might see any attempts at support as being an extension of their deprivation of liberty. Nonetheless, the problems faced by people leaving custody without supervision or support are substantial enough to merit further consideration of possible interventions.

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Impacts of ex-prisoner clients on service provision

Staff in each agency were asked whether their provision of services to ex-prisoner clients was impacting in any way on their provision of services to other, non ex-prisoner clients.

With very limited exceptions, the impact of ex-prisoner clients was not an issue for staff. A number of the agencies involved in the research specifically targeted ex-prisoners as their core business, so for them there was no question of any deleterious impacts.

Any impacts reported were minimal and of relatively little concern to staff. Staff members in one agency noted that many ex-prisoners request to live alone, or request not to live with other ex-prisoners. This can reduce available accommodation as one person is taking up a property that could have been used for two clients. The particular issues faced by ex-prisoners also meant that it could be difficult to match people up in shared accommodation. Another staff member, in a state where the public housing organisation regards imprisonment as stable accommodation, said that because ex-prisoners do not necessarily meet public housing criteria they may have to remain in supported accommodation for a long time and 'block up' properties for other clients. This staff member also noted that ex-prisoner clients need more intensive support than others and may cause tenancy problems by not being 'house ready' and not able to properly look after properties.

All other staff, regardless of the type of agency they worked in, reported that the impact of ex-prisoner clients was not an issue and all clients received equitable access to services. It should be noted that, as the number of agencies involved in this research was small and several of the agencies involved in the research specifically targeted ex-prisoners, the finding of minimal impact on other client groups may not be representative of other agencies which cater to other types of target groups.

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Perceptions of assistance for serving prisoners

Staff members and workers participating in interviews were asked their understanding, or perception, of the programs, advice, information and other services available inside the prison system to help prisoners with finding accommodation. This question did not seek to establish in any way a definitive summary of forms of assistance available to prisoners in different institutions or jurisdictions. If this was the nature of the information sought it could have been better gained by accessing other research on the topic or surveying corrections agencies. Rather the research team was seeking to establish the perceptions and opinions of SAAP agency staff on the basis that the perceptions of staff would be reflective of the information presented to them by prisoners leaving the system. In turn, this should give an indication of what available services prisoners are accessing and how this is assisting them in approaching life outside the prison.

As anticipated, the perceptions of staff in this area varied between jurisdictions. In New South Wales, CRC noted that it promotes itself with welfare officers and the Probation and Parole Service. The agency tends to get referrals from only some of the state's prisons, despite being a State-wide service. It was noted that there was a large strain placed on Welfare Officers throughout the correctional system who tend to be overloaded with work.

Another agency also noted that Centrelink and the state housing organisation as well as various welfare services go into prisons to assist people approaching release, but this was up to Welfare Officers to organise. It was indicated that there were pre-release programs and treatment groups in most prisons, which some prisoners choose to use and others not. There were also avenues of assistance within the correctional system if prisoners chose to or were able to access them.

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In Queensland workers recognised they had no specific knowledge of what assistance was available to prisoners, but had the perception that there was not a lot available. Staff were not sure whether there was not much available, or their clients had chosen not to use it, but that information from clients suggested they had received very little assistance.

In South Australia, OARS SA noted its own work in providing information and assessment services. Staff noted the importance of being able to see clients in prison on a number of occasions across the period leading up to their release so that clients can be properly assessed and be offered appropriate accommodation and levels of support. With male clients, staff felt it important not to offer prisoners too many things in the way of support as they often tended to see this as an imposition on their impending liberty and backed away from support. With female clients, the agency cannot offer direct accommodation but looks at other options for support and works in with another community service, which provides direct accommodation services and also provides an in-prison service. OARS SA workers noted that prison staff were familiar with the agency's work through its reputation and long history and tended to 'leave them to it'.

OARS SA also facilitates an 'expo' in the women's prison with various agencies setting up information stalls where the women are able to move around to talk with agency staff. These agencies cover a wide range of support services including health, finances, drug and alcohol, resolving child-related issues, education and domestic violence. Staff felt allowing the female prisoners to move around and talk with staff on their own terms was very important in terms of giving prisoners an information base and meant they were much more likely to access services on release. The service is also working on an arrangement with the state housing organisation to visit prisoners and sort out public housing problems such as debts and rental arrears before people are released.

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OARS SA also noted that the South Australian government has recently established a Social Inclusion Unit to address issues of homelessness and education among releasing prisoners. Significantly, the initiative will allow support to be given on a throughcare basis to people leaving prison without supervision orders. At the same time, staff noted the very high levels of remand in South Australia and that remand prisoners are not able to access many forms of assistance, such as pre-release programs.

In Victoria staff indicated they perceived there was not a lot of assistance available to prisoners, particularly male prisoners. The agency often got very short notice of a prisoner's release to their support and did not have the opportunity to work with clients before release. Some staff felt that unless prisoners had been lucky enough to be able to line up support, such as through prison chaplains or through family, they were largely left up to themselves to resolve problems like accommodation on release. Other staff noted that community-based housing information referral workers would visit prisons and that through a Pre- and Post-Release Network Committee workers in the field were able to discuss issues affecting the field and resolve some issues impacting on support services.

A program has recently commenced through a women's prison in Victoria to establish links for women approaching release into services such as the City Mission and the Office of Housing. While this program is limited in the number of places it can offer this initiative looks to establish a stronger basis for preparing people for dealing with accommodation and other issues before they are released.

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Conclusions -- assistance for serving prisoners

Based on the understanding of workers in the field, there appears to be a good deal of variation between the levels and types of assistance available for prisoners approaching release in different jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, clients are presenting to staff as having received very little assistance or preparation. There is a need for well-planned and integrated programs in each jurisdiction, which ideally link with related support services in the community.

It is interesting that agency staff in Victoria did not make reference to the Transitional Housing Management-Corrections Housing Pathways Initiative (THM-CHPI) which has been operating on a pilot basis in a number of Victorian prisons for approximately two years. Discussion by the agency in relation to female clients may have been referring to this Initiative without this being specifically noted by the researcher. It is possible that the agency has not dealt with clients who have come from the male prisons involved with the pilot or that for some other reason information about the Initiative had not flowed through to the agency. It is also possible that the questions posed by the interviewer did not tend to elicit this kind of specific information. Whatever the reason, this finding does not suggest in any way that the THM-CHPI is not achieving its objectives, rather that there may be a need for information about the Initiative to be more effectively disseminated to agencies at the operational level.

It appears likely that in many cases more assistance, formal or informal, is available than prisoners actually access. This may be because they are not aware of the assistance being available, in which case the corrections system might have to look at improved information flows or more proactive assistance. In other cases lack of access may be due to a lack of will on the part of prisoners themselves. This is a more difficult problem to address, but more proactive assistance and greater promotion of opportunities will go some way to dealing with it.

As noted above, assistance for remand or short-term prisoners is considered to be particularly lacking, although addressing this situation is not easy. As well as issues of willingness to participate and possible interference with court decisions as indicated above, the nature of remand custody and the necessary assumption that a client will not be convicted and imprisoned will always make interventions for these categories of prisoner problematic.

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Perceived gaps in SAAP service provision

Staff in each agency were asked whether they saw major gaps in SAAP service provision for ex-prisoners facing homelessness and, if so, what these gaps were. Staff were also asked what they found themselves having to do to get around these gaps. To an extent responses against these questions intersected with earlier responses about challenges in providing services to ex-prisoners, but there were also areas of expansion. Responses tended to follow to an extent the nature of the service provided by the responding agency.

Generally, there was perceived to be gaps in the number and variety of accommodation options available, as discussed earlier. Generally, a lack of affordable housing, particularly available public housing and housing in a variety of geographic areas, was identified as a major gap or problem by almost all staff in all agencies. In New South Wales, there was seen to be a big gap in services for women. There are some hostels or shelters available but they tend to be restrictive in their criteria and are considered to be quite institutional. Other female services are generalist services that are able to assist female ex-prisoners but do not necessarily deal with their particular problems, such as those stemming from institutionalisation.

There was a similar problem in South Australia, where accommodation options for women, especially those with children or escaping domestic violence, were limited. Staff in that agency pointed to the need for more emergency accommodation for women and families and medium-term supported accommodation for women. Staff also saw a need for accommodation options allowing women to be released on bail or undertake Home Detention without necessarily relying on family support. More support groups for women and children was seen as another gap in service.

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Staff in some agencies saw gaps in mental health service provision which had direct relationships to issues surrounding ex-prisoner homelessness. There was seen to be gaps in the area of supported mental health accommodation which placed strains on ex-prisoner agencies who had to provide support to ex-prisoners with mental health issues without being properly resourced to do so.

As noted earlier, staff in a number of agencies saw a need for more transitional or half-way housing, specifically planned and allocated for prisoners on release. Some also saw the need for more community or group housing in which properly matched people could support and help each other with help and mentoring from support agencies.

Inadequate financial assistance was seen as a gap by a number of staff. They saw the amount of financial assistance provided by Centrelink at the time of release was not enough for people to get by, especially those clients not moving into supported accommodation. Some staff felt that there would be better outcomes for clients if they had a greater amount of money available up-front to pay for rental bonds and household goods. Staff also noted the difficulties many clients have with managing finances and felt this additional assistance would be better provided in the form of vouchers or other non-negotiable forms. A number of staff also felt there was a need for a greater amount of individualised assistance with budgeting and financial management skills.

Most staff members felt that, overall, there were services available for those who were aware of them and chose to use them. It is not surprising that staff providing intensive support services did not identify gaps in direct service provision, as their own agencies were providing these services. The ability of their agencies to provide services sufficient to meet demand within existing resources was however identified as a problem. Staff in agencies not offering intensive support services generally felt that there were no gaps in service for those clients who chose to 'play the game' and make use of services. Some saw a need for greater access to information about available services, but a number of staff felt that clients who wanted help would be able to find it.

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Not surprisingly, staff members were not necessarily eager to discuss the specific tactics they used to get around gaps in service provision. Most staff talked about the need to be creative in their service provision and find ways to make the best use of the resources they had available. In some cases this meant finding flexible ways of working with protocols and policies, or even taking risks to achieve a good outcome for clients. In other cases creativity included developing other services out of existing resources where possible. Most saw good networking and close relationships with other agencies, together with the careful application of advocacy on behalf of clients, as an integral component to working around the gaps.

Conclusions -- gaps in SAAP service provision

The gaps in service provision identified by agencies corresponded closely to some of the challenges they saw in providing services to ex-prisoner clients.

The major area perceived to be deficient was a need for more accommodation options, particularly for the specialised needs of women escaping domestic violence and maybe having children in their care, or people with mental health issues. This is perhaps not so much a gap in SAAP service provision as a gap in resources SAAP services are able to access.

It will be noted later in this report that a lack of accommodation options, together with issues of financial assistance identified by staff, were also identified by exprisoner clients when they were asked what help they thought was missing. At the same time clients, in common with agency staff, also felt that most services areas were adequately catered for, even though sufficient resources to deliver those services to all those requiring them were not necessarily in place.


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