1. Introduction
1.1 Background
The hidden and transient nature of much homelessness in a country like Australia makes it difficult to be precise about its extent or to be sure whether it is increasing or declining over time. One estimate, generally acknowledged to be authoritative, uses a broad definition including people in highly insecure housing as well as those literally ‘roofless’, and has put the number of people (including children) homeless at the time of the 2001 Census at around 100,000 (Chamberlain and MacKenzie, 2003). Updated estimates based on the 2006 Census are not yet available.
The population of homeless people is made up of individuals and families with widely diverse characteristics and circumstances, such as young people who have left parental homes or State care, women and children escaping domestic violence, and older, single men who are long-term homeless for reasons including marital breakdown. Many have problems in addition to or contributing to their lack of secure housing. A recent estimate puts the proportion of homelessness service users with mental health problems at around 12 per cent and those with substance abuse problems at 19 per cent (AIHW, 2007). Of course, by no means all homeless people are users of services – it is generally acknowledged that the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) only deals with a minority of all those who become homeless at some stage in their lives, and on any one night in Australia a large number of homeless people approaching services are unable to access them because of a shortage of beds or other resources (AIHW, 2004: 61; AIHW, 2006a: 62; Thompson, 2007).
Also any causality that might exist between homelessness and mental health or substance use problems is not necessarily uni-directional. Some recent research in Melbourne by Chamberlain, Johnson and Theobald (2007) has indicated that mental health problems are often brought on by the experience of homelessness rather than necessarily being a precursor to it. Nevertheless, the difficulties that some people who become homeless face mean that a wide range of supports are needed in addition to secure housing in order to avoid repeated episodes of homelessness.
1.2 The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP)
SAAP is the main national service response to homelessness in Australia. Established in 1985, SAAP is cost-shared and jointly managed by the Commonwealth, States and Territories. Together they fund services provided by more than 1300 agencies, including non-governmental, community-based and local government organisations, throughout Australia (AIHW, 2006b). SAAP services typically provide crisis and medium- or longer-term accommodation, and/or case management support. While the focus of services varies across States and Territories, case management has become an increasingly important element of the SAAP service package as a whole in recent years, in recognition of the wider needs of clients. Generally speaking, however, SAAP-funded services are not themselves in the business of providing secure, long-term accommodation, though they may be able to help some clients access this. The main stated aim of SAAP is to ‘provide transitional supported accommodation and related support services to help homeless people achieve the maximum possible degree of self-reliance and independence’ (AIHW, 2006b:1).
1.3 Project aims
Achieving ‘self-reliance’ is a key aim of SAAP then, but what do we mean by it in the context of homelessness, and how do we know whether SAAP services are successfully helping clients to achieve it? The SAAP V Multilateral Agreement sees self-reliance in terms of connections with family and social and economic supports and networks (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005: 42). However, SAAP administrative data include only a limited amount of information on client outcomes and do not specifically address many of the wider facets of self-reliance posited in this definition.
SAAP has previously commissioned developmental work on measuring client outcomes and on the concept of self-reliance (Browton, 2000; Kunnen et al., 2004; Kunnen and Martin, 2004), and the current study was designed to build on this work and to take it further. The SAAP V Multilateral Agreement between the Commonwealth, States and Territories includes a program of evaluation with a strong focus on outcomes. Under this initiative, the SPRC was commissioned by the SAAP National Coordination and Development Committee (CAD), through the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), to design and implement a client survey to measure how far receiving SAAP services facilitates positive change in client self-reliance, and to examine what forms this improvement takes for different client groups. This research is aimed to complement other work on outcome measures being developed by SAAP.
1.4 Methods
The main element of the study was a self-completion survey of a sample of 630 clients recruited through a representative national sample of SAAP services. The design and content of the survey were informed by:
- A review of the literature on self-reliance and homelessness, and on outcomes tools developed to measure self-reliance;
- Consultations with SAAP policy makers, SAAP services, peak homelessness organisations, and reference groups of clients or ex clients, in Sydney and Melbourne;
- Collection from SAAP services of other agency-developed survey instruments or tools developed to assess client outcomes; and
- Piloting of the draft survey instrument with clients of three SAAP agencies in Sydney.
The final stage of the research involved developing a set of illustrative case studies of SAAP service clients and ex-clients in the Sydney region. These were based on in-depth interviews with clients demonstrating various forms of progress in achieving self-reliance as a result of receiving SAAP services.
The methodology is discussed further in the next two sections of the report.
1.5 Structure of the report
The report is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses the concept of self-reliance as applied to homeless people and the methodological challenges resulting from it. Section 3 describes in more detail the conduct of the research and the methods used. Section 4 describes the achieved sample for the survey and compares the characteristics of respondents with those of SAAP clients as a whole, noting to what extent our sample can be seen as representative. Section 5 presents the results of the survey, looking at client trajectories into and out of homelessness; their experiences with and reasons for accessing SAAP services; factors that helped and hindered the development of self-reliance; the relationship between self-reliance and SAAP services, with specific reference to the ways in which, and the extent to which, the services helped the clients ‘get back on their feet’; and other sources of support that assisted the clients. Section 6 presents the case studies, describing the experiences of clients who have accessed SAAP services. This qualitative exploration complements the quantitative research findings by illuminating further the experiences of self-reliance uncovered in the survey.
Section 7, the conclusion of the study, draws together the results of the survey and case studies. It summarises and discusses the key findings about self-reliance in the context of SAAP services, and their implications for different client groups and service types. This final section also reflects on the methodological lessons for future work in this area.