Measuring the impact of SAAP-funded homelessness services on client self-reliance

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Contents

• Authors, contact and acknowledgments

• Executive Summary

• 1. Introduction

• 2. Understanding 'self-reliance' in the context of homelessness

• 3. Methodology

• 4. Characteristics of the SAAP services and clients participating in the survey

• 5. Results of the client survey

• 6. Case studies

• 7. Discussion and conclusions

• References

• Appendix A: Getting Back On Your Feet: a survey of people who use homelessness services

• Appendix B: Topic guide for case study interviews

5. Results of the client survey

5.1 Homelessness histories

One factor likely to influence the extent to which service use can hope to boost clients’ self-reliance is how long someone has been homeless, when in their lives periods of homelessness began, and how often such periods have recurred. The longer and more frequent homelessness has been, the more entrenched the difficulties are likely to be, and the harder it will be for services to help people regain control over their lives and their situations.

People’s histories of homelessness are complex, not least because of the lack of a settled definition of homelessness that everyone would share. They are also subject to difficulties of recall. The survey attempted to address the topic with several questions. First was an open-ended question ‘When was the first time in your life you did not have a settled and secure place to live?’ and respondents were invited to write in an answer either as a date or as a measure of time elapsed (e.g. 1995, three years ago, last month, etc.). Table 5.1 presents the answers to this question, where the individual answers have been grouped into time periods, broken down by age and sex. Perhaps reflecting the difficulty this question presented for clients themselves, there was a relatively high non-response rate of around 12 per cent (including a few non-responses to age and sex questions).

Around 79 per cent of the sample had experienced homelessness, either continuously or intermittently, for at least a year, and close to half (49 per cent) had first become homeless more than five years before. For eight per cent (45 individuals) the experience of homelessness went back more than 20 years and for some this meant most or all of their lives. Some examples of the responses from this group are given below.

I have never had stable accommodation
I have never felt safe and secure
Never – I went to 17 schools
All my life
Since birth
Since the age of five
Since I was a little kid
As long as I can remember
In childhood … there was domestic violence and incest in my home

For at least one person, homelessness was intergenerational: a 27-year old man said ‘parents, grandparents’. The ‘other’ responses did not give specific time spans, but some implied extended periods of homelessness, such as ‘ long time’, ‘many years off and on’ and ‘too long’.

Table 5.1: ‘When was the first time in your life you did not have a settled and secure place to live?’, by age and sex

	Age (years)
Time since first homeless	< 15	15-24	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65 or over	Total
Male
< 1 month	0	7.6	2.5	0	0	0	0	3.1
>1-6 months	0	7.6	5.0	2.2	10.7	12.5	0	6.3
>6-12 months	0	9.1	0	2.2	3.6	0	0	4.2
>1-5 years	0	51.5	7.5	28.9	3.6	0	0	27.0
>5-10 years	0	16.7	22.5	24.4	28.6	25.0	0	24.3
>10-20 years	0	4.5	45.0	24.4	28.6	20.0	100.0	23.3
>20 years	0	1.5	7.5	15.6	14.3	12.5	0	8.5
Other/NA	0	0	5.0	2.2	0	0	0	3.2
N	0	66	40	45	28	8	2	189
Female
< 1 month	33.3	2.1	1.0	0	0	0	16.7	1.7
>1-6 months	33.3	7.1	7.9	9.0	7.1	0	16.7	8.0
>6-12 months	33.3	7.9	11.9	11.5	7.1	20.0	16.7	10.2
>1-5 years	0	46.4	19.8	28.2	28.6	20.0	33.3	32.7
>5-10 years	0	20.7	21.8	17.9	25.0	40.0	16.7	20.8
>10-20 years	0	8.6	24.8	19.2	7.1	0	0	15.0
>20 years	0	1.4	9.9	10.3	25.0	20.0	0	7.8
Other/NA	0	5.7	3.0	3.9	1.3	0	0	2.2
N	3	140	101	78	28	5	6	361
Total N Missing	3	206	141	123	56	13	8	550 80

Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

Looking at the age and sex breakdown, we can see that nearly three-quarters of the young men aged 15-24 and more than three-quarters of the women in this age group first experienced homelessness more than one year ago. For 10 per cent of the women aged 15-24, homelessness began more than 10 years ago. While the numbers in the older age groups were small, it is also striking to note that more than two-fifths (42.5 per cent) of the men aged 45-54 first became homeless more than 10 years ago, as did close to one-third (32.1 per cent) of the women of this age.

The second question asked to explore homelessness histories concerned the frequency with which people had been homeless (Table 5.2). Overall, just under 14 per cent said that they had always had secure housing previously and that the episode of homelessness that brought them to this service was the first time they had experienced homelessness. Nearly 16 per cent said that they had been homeless once before, but nearly two-thirds (65.1 per cent) said that this had happened a few times or often. A chi-square test indicates a probability at the five per cent level that the differences between men and women were significant, in that the latter were more likely to have had secure housing previously and were less likely to have been homeless often. This may reflect the fact that women often become homeless as a result of domestic violence, without having previously experienced housing problems.

Table 5.2: ‘Before you came to this service for help, how many times in your life did you not have a settled and secure place to live?’, by sex

How many times?	Male %	Female %	Total %
Once	14.2	16.5	15.7
A few times	41.5	43.1	42.6
Often	29.2	19.0	22.5
I always had a secure place to live	9.0	16.2	13.7
Don’t know	6.1	5.2	5.5
Total	100	100	100
N Missing	212	401	623 17

X2 = 12.6, p< 0.05
Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

The third question asked as a way of establishing a picture of people’s homelessness histories concerned the length of time they had been getting help from the SAAP service of which they were presently a client (Table 5.3).

Because the criteria for recruitment of clients for the survey included involvement with the service for at least four weeks and participation in case management, we would expect to see longer periods of engagement with services in this sample than would be the average for the SAAP clientele as a whole. Nevertheless, the lengths of time involved with the service are remarkable. More than one-quarter (26 per cent) reported getting help from the service for between one and five years, and a further six per cent for more than five years. Men were somewhat more likely than women to have long periods of involvement with the service, with more than one-third (34 per cent) of young men aged 15-24 getting help for one to five years, compared with 23 per cent of young women. However, there was no statistically significant difference between men and women in the lengths of service use.

One other point of note is that although crisis and short-term accommodation services generally provide accommodation for no more than three months at a time, close to two-thirds of clients recruited from this type of service said they had been receiving help from the service for more than three months. While this could partly be a matter of recall, it may also indicate the pressure that some services are under not to move people on if there is no other secure accommodation available for them.

Table 5.3: ‘How long have you been getting help from this service?, by age and sex

Table 5.1: ‘When was the first time in your life you did not have a settled and secure place to live?’, by age and sex

	Age (years)
How long?	Under 25	25-50	51 or older	Total
Male
Up to 1 month	10.4	4.5	0	6.1
>1-3 months	22.4	18.9	15.0	19.7
>3-6 months	11.9	18.9	20.0	16.7
>6-12 months	17.9	20.7	20.0	19.7
>1-5 years	34.3	23.4	30.0	27.8
>5 years	3.0	13.5	15.0	10.1
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N	67	111	20	198
Female
Up to 1 month	12.5	8.8	13.3	10.4
>1-3 months	23.6	19.6.	6.7	20.7
>3-6 months	15.3	19.2	13.3	17.4
>6-12 months	21.5	23.4	33.3	23.1
>1-5 years	22.9	26.2	20.0	24.7
>5 years	4.2	2.8	13.3	3.8
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N	144	214	15	373
Total N Missing				571 59

Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

The final way of gauging the intensity of involvement with homelessness services is presented in Table 5.4 below, which reports on the number of times people recalled getting help from similar services previously. Despite the lengths of time some people had been homeless and the frequency of homeless episodes, more than two-fifths reported that this was the first time they had got help from any homelessness agency. This is perhaps not surprising given that we know that only a minority of homeless people end up getting help from SAAP services (despite the fact that SAAP is the nation’s primary response to homelessness). The differences for men and women were statistically significant at the one per cent level, with nearly half the women reporting that this was their first use of a service like this, compared with one-third of the men, and correspondingly more men reporting frequent previous use of services.

 

Table 5.4: ‘How many times have you got help from services like this before?’, by sex

	Sex
How often	Male %	Female %	Total %
Never	34.0	49.4	44.0
Once	14.4	18.4	17.0
A few times	37.2	24.6	29.0
Often	10.7	5.2	7.1
Don’t know	3.7	2.5	2.9
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0
N Missing			618 12

X2 = 23.3, p< 0.01
Source: SPRC client survey

These facets of homelessness experience and service use will come in to play again later when we present analysis of the data on the outcomes achieved in different life domains. We now move on to discuss the reasons clients gave for coming to the SAAP service for help. Again these will provide context for the analysis of reported progress achieved.

5.2 Reasons for seeking help from the SAAP service

Respondents were asked to tick up to four boxes in a list of possible reasons that brought them to the service for help, or to write in another if they felt reasons important for them were not covered in the list provided. In practice 43 respondents (nearly seven per cent) ticked more than four boxes (with a few ticking most or all boxes), and 67 (11 per cent) wrote in another reason.

Table 5.5 presents the list of reasons ticked, or written in, for the whole sample in order of the total frequency with which they were ticked. Respondents were not asked to prioritise the reasons, so the number of times a reason appeared as a first or second reason would partly just reflect the order in which the items were placed in the questionnaire. The list includes the main ‘other’ responses that clients wrote in, which are indicated by being italicised.

Table 5.5: Main reasons clients reported coming to this service for help, in order of total frequency, by sex  (numbers)

	Sex
Reasons	Male	Female	Total
I needed to escape domestic violence	21	183	204
My relationship broke down	49	119	168
I was being abused	14	127	141
I needed time out	47	87	134
I was having money problems	65	64	129
I was told to leave	44	76	120
I was moving around	53	58	111
I was taking drugs/drinking too much	58	44	102
I had mental health problems	37	32	69
I recently arrived in the area	30	33	65
I was evicted	27	36	63
My emergency accommodation period ended	26	29	55
My child(ren) was/were being abused	5	45	50
I had trouble with the law/police	20	17	37
‘Homelessness’	6	15	21
I had just left hospital	10	9	19
I was losing money by gambling	12	6	18
I had just left gaol	12	3	16
Previous accommodation unsuitable/unavailable	4	10	14
Violent situations other than domestic violence	5	7	12
Because of what this service had to offer	2	10	12
I had recently left State care	4	7	11
Ill-health	2	3	5
Referred to this service	1	1	2
N Missing			613 17

Source: SPRC client survey

It is evident that relationship breakdown, violence and abuse constituted easily the most common reasons for people approaching SAAP services for help. To some extent, of course, this simply reflects the nature of services available, since women’s domestic violence refuges represent a substantial proportion of all SAAP-funded provision. There is likely to be some overlap between the domestic violence and the abuse items, and the ‘time out’ item would also include pressure arising from relationship difficulties, either with partners, parents or other family members. The next most frequently mentioned reasons included money problems, being ‘told to leave’ accommodation (which, if counted together with more formal eviction processes, the generalised ‘homelessness’ category and ‘accommodation unavailable or unsuitable’ would rise close to the top of the list), moving around – or already being in unsettled accommodation - problem substance use and mental health problems.

Money problems included, in one case, having had a mental breakdown resulting in the loss of a business, while other instances of violence included fights in boarding houses, harassment from neighbours, disputes with flatmates, problems with drug-using housemates, and in one case having to escape from an abusive cult. Unsuitable or unavailable accommodation included severe overcrowding, substandard housing, rented houses being sold by landlords, and house fires.

Looking at the differences for men and women, it is important to note that, because the sample included nearly twice as many women as men, it is misleading simply to compare the numbers in the two columns above. Even so, it is clear that domestic violence, abuse and relationship breakdown were the predominant factors associated with seeking help to a much greater extent for women than for men. For men there was a much wider spread of reasons reported, with issues such as substance abuse and money problems proportionately more common than for women.

Analysis by age group shows that a majority of the males reporting needing to escape domestic violence were in the 15-19 year old age group, suggesting that the violence they were escaping may have been in the parental home (or possibly from house sharers). For both sexes, the ‘time out’ reason was also concentrated in the younger age groups, suggesting that homelessness was often a result of young people leaving conflict or pressures in the parental home.

A similar pattern of reasons was given by respondents identifying as Indigenous, though the order was somewhat different. Domestic violence was again top, with 38 mentions, followed in this case by ‘needing time out’ (28), relationship breakdown (26), abuse (20), money problems (17), being told to leave and moving around (both 16), substance use (13), child abuse (8), being evicted and being new in the area (both 7), loss of emergency accommodation (6), ‘homelessness’ and legal problems (both 5), and mental health problems (3).

Having established a picture of respondents’ histories of homelessness and the reasons that brought them to the SAAP service for help, we now move on to consider what meaning the respondents gave to ‘self-reliance’ in the context of these needs, and what they saw as the barriers to their attaining it.

5.3 What does self-reliance mean to SAAP clients?

The survey was entitled ‘Getting Back On Your Feet’, following the earlier exploratory work by Kunnen and Martin (2004), and we posed the question about self-reliance in these terms, as an open-ended question.

There were a huge number of responses (approximately 1255 in total) and we grouped the answers into a series of broad categories where it appeared that respondents were getting at the same point in different words, as shown in Table 5.6 below.

The largest single category, amounting to around one-fifth of all responses to this question, related, not surprisingly, to accommodation. People said that what they needed in order to get back on their feet was safe, secure and affordable housing – ‘having a home’, ‘a roof over our heads’, ‘a stable place to live’, ‘getting a secure place for me and my children’, ‘my own place’.

The next largest category, just over 10 per cent, consisted of references to ‘self-reliance’ and its synonyms: independence, self-sufficiency, reliability, coping, being self-supporting/strong/responsible/in control, taking control, being organised, managing one’s own life, thinking clearly, solving problems, coming to terms with mistakes – ‘everything going smoothly’, ‘getting issues sorted out’, ‘overcoming troubles’ – not dependent on social security/services, not needing help. While not too much weight should be placed on this – it is after all partly just a restatement of the question and an artifact of the survey itself (i.e. - people were told this was a survey about ‘self-reliance’) – nonetheless, a considerable number of people (nearly 21 per cent of the sample) were sufficiently concerned with the issue not only to highlight it in their responses to this question, but also to re-express the same idea in many different ways.

Other frequently cited issues included children’s wellbeing; having employment; ‘moving forward’; having money; safety and stability; interdependence; and ‘returning to the way things were’. People also mentioned pride, contentment and happiness; getting away from fear; being themselves again; getting their freedom back; making new friends; and making a new start in life.

Table 5.6: ‘What does getting back on your feet mean to you?’ (number and percentages of responses in grouped categories)

	Frequency	%
Getting accommodation	267	21.3
Self-reliance & its synonyms	131	10.4
Children's wellbeing	110	8.8
Having a job	88	7.0
Moving forward	87	6.9
Having money	84	6.7
Safety	78	6.2
Stability	65	5.2
Interdependence	47	3.8
‘Returning to the way things were’	44	3.5
Positive attitudes	41	3.3
Security	32	2.6
Happiness	31	2.5
Education	30	2.4
Good relationship with family	20	1.6
‘means a lot to me’	17	1.4
Staying sober, drug-free	16	1.3
Good health	15	1.2
Mental health	9	0.7
Staying out of trouble with the law/police	4	0.3
Miscellaneous	39	3.1
Total	1255	100
N Missing	609 21

Source: Source: SPRC client survey

Four-fifths of all responses fell into the top 10 categories and these are broken down by sex in Table 5.7 below. The percentages have been recalculated to sum to 100 within this sub-group of main responses.

Table 5.7: ‘What does getting back on your feet mean to you?’ (Top 10 categories by sex)

	Sex
	Male %	Female %	Total %
Getting accommodation	30.4	25.1	26.7
Self-reliance & its synonyms	11.2	13.9	13.1
Children's well-being	5.6	13.2	10.9
Having a job	13.5	6.8	8.9
Moving forward	11.9	7.4	8.8
Having money	8.6	8.4	8.5
Safety	2.6	10.1	7.9
Stability	6.9	6.4	6.5
Interdependence	5.6	4.3	4.7
‘Returning to the way things were’	3.6	4.3	4.4
Total	100	100	100

Source: Source: SPRC client survey

Although the relative frequency of each of the different grouped responses was similar for men and women overall, there were a few distinct differences. Women were more than twice as likely to highlight their children’s wellbeing as a key element of getting back on their feet - not surprisingly given that clients with children are predominantly women – and nearly four times as likely as men to mention safety. Again this reflects the fact that domestic violence is one of the main reasons that women seek help from SAAP services, but it also underlines women’s sense of vulnerability when experiencing homelessness. Men were slightly more likely than women to highlight getting accommodation as the key element in getting back on their feet, and twice as likely to mention getting a job.

In many ways the survey responses support the concept of self-reliance developed by Kunnen and Martin (2004) through their qualitative research and that adopted by SAAP in its Multilateral Agreement. It is encouraging to find that there is a degree of consensus on the topic.

We then asked respondents to write in what they saw as the barriers for them to getting back on their feet (Table 5.8). Again we have grouped responses into broad categories.

Table 5.8: ‘What makes it difficult to get back on your feet?’ (grouped response frequencies)

	Number of responses	%
Lack of money	205	18.2
No accommodation	145	12.9
Problems with other people	121	10.7
No employment	60	5.3
Drug and alcohol problems	50	4.4
Depression/stress etc.	47	4.2
Lack of support	45	4.0
Problems with private rental accommodation	42	3.7
Own negative attitudes	34	3.0
Disability/ill-health	33	2.9
Problems with children	32	2.8
Difficulties with services/Government agencies	27	2.4
Mental health issues	27	2.4
Domestic violence	25	2.2
Immigration problems	22	2.0
Too young to get tenancies	20	1.8
Difficulties with transport	18	1.6
Debts	17	1.5
Trouble with the law	15	1.3
‘The past’	14	1.2
Unskilled/not enough education	11	1.0
Other violence	9	0.8
Problems with the Family Law Court	5	0.4
Being a single parent	4	0.4
Lack of information	3	0.3
Lack of identification (ID)	2	0.2
Miscellaneous	64	5.7
No response	31	2.7
Total	1128	100
N Missing	609 21

Source: Source: SPRC client survey

The largest single category of difficulty mentioned was a lack of or too little money (just over 18 per cent of responses),2 although having enough money (or a job) was not given a high priority among those factors necessary for getting back on one’s feet. The next most common barriers were ‘no accommodation’ (13 per cent), which is somewhat tautologous in the context of a survey of homelessness, followed by ‘problems with other people’ (11 per cent), including relationship problems with partners and with parents, and lack of employment (five per cent).

2 Usually, the response was simply ‘money’, but it is unlikely that respondents were having difficulties because they had enough money, or too much.

5.4 SAAP service use and progress towards achieving self-reliance

As a way of initially approaching the idea of progress towards self-reliance, we began with a summary question, asking respondents to mark on a line how far they felt they had moved towards getting back on their feet since coming to the service.

Q. Thinking about how things were for you just before you came to this service, how far do you feel you have now moved towards getting back on your feet? Please mark on the line below where you feel you are now.

How things were before

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Back on my feet

Figure 5.1 below shows the distribution of respondents’ assessment of their movements along this continuum, by sex. A small proportion chose to indicate that they were still at the same point as before they began getting help, so we have included zero in the scale. Around five per cent of the sample did not respond to this question: it is possible that some of these respondents also felt things had not improved for them.

Figure 5.1: Percentage distribution of clients’ self-assessed scores for movement towards ‘getting back on their feet’, by sex

Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

Overall, more than two-thirds (67 per cent felt they had moved at least beyond the halfway point towards getting back on their feet, and more than one-third felt they were at point 8 or beyond. Only a small number (just under five per cent) put themselves still where they were before they came to the service for help, but just over nine per cent put themselves right at the positive end of the continuum. Women were slightly more likely than men to place themselves at the positive end. While it is possible that there is a tendency for people to be over-optimistic in response to such a question, the responses nevertheless seem encouraging.

As an initial attempt to discern further bi-variate relationships between progress towards self-reliance and client characteristics and circumstances, the mean scores were then broken down by key demographic and circumstantial variables, including the responses to earlier questions on client histories of homelessness (Table 5.9).

Overall, there was relatively little variation according to these different factors, but certain ones appeared to stand out. As a whole, women seem to have done a little better than men, for example, while Indigenous clients seem to have done somewhat worse than non-Indigenous clients. Older clients and those born outside Australia seem to have done somewhat better than younger clients and those born in Australia. Perhaps one of the most interesting findings is that while there is no linear relationship between the length of time that respondents had been homeless and their perceptions of how far they had moved towards self-reliance, there does seem to be a link between movement towards self-reliance and length of time receiving help from the service. The implication is that achieving results takes time and that services need to be able to offer engagement with clients over a significant period to have a perceptible effect.

Table 5.9: ‘How far have you moved towards getting back on your feet?’, mean scores, by client characteristics and circumstances

Header	Mean score	Standard deviation
All	6.25	2.50
Sex
Men	6.05	2.57
Women	6.22	2.35
Age group
Under 25	6.26	2.44
25-50	6.15	2.51
51 or over	6.85	2.55
Indigenous?
Yes	5.89	2.85
No	6.28	2.45
Country of birth
Australia	6.19	2.50
Another English-speaking country	6.39	2.33
A non-English speaking country	6.44	2.58
Highest education level
Primary school	5.19	3.17
Some secondary school	6.18	2.50
Completed secondary school	6.56	2.47
Trade certificate/apprenticeship or similar	6.03	2.35
TAFE qualification	6.31	2.36
University degree	6.24	2.65
No schooling	8.33	2.89
Family status when came to service
Alone	6.18	2.40
With partner	6.68	1.82
With children (on own)	6.27	2.71
With partner and children	5.85	3.39
With another family member	6.79	2.30
Time since first homeless
< 1 month	4.27	2.20
>1-6 months	5.90	2.59
>6-12 months	6.56	2.37
>1-5 years	6.32	2.49
>5-10 years	6.30	2.50
>10-20 years	6.65	2.15
>20 years	6.31	2.47
How long getting help from this service
Up to 1 month	5.30	2.52
>1-3 months	5.53	2.16
>3-6 months	6.40	2.23
>6-12 months	6.70	2.32
>1-5 years	6.88	2.57
>5 years	6.68	2.63
State
NSW	6.40	2.52
Vic	6.21	2.62
Qld	6.00	2.71
ACT	7.05	2.01
Tas	6.50	2.25
SA	5.86	2.27
NT	7.00	0.71
WA	5.56	2.71
SAAP service type
Crisis or short-term accommodation	6.16	2.73
Medium to long-term accommodation	6.17	2.15
Day support	5.10	3.21
Outreach support	6.52	1.89
Multiple	6.36	2.11
Other	6.17	2.14
N = 562-630, Missing  = 0-68

Source: SPRC client survey

These, however, are all individual bi-variate relationships and, as was emphasised earlier, self-reliance is a multifactorial concept in itself and is also likely to be influenced by all the diverse factors of client circumstances. To explore this further we therefore used a linear regression model to test the multivariate relationships between the characteristics and circumstances of clients, and their self-rated scores. The regression estimates the extent to which each individual factor influences the score levels, holding the other factors constant.

Table 5.10 presents the results of the regression. The adjusted R Square is quite high, indicating that around 70 per cent of the variation in scores can be explained by the combination of the independent variables listed. Differences in the effectiveness of assistance provided by SAAP services are likely to partly explain the rest, along with unobservable characteristics of clients, such as personality or their inclination to mark themselves high or low on scores. The B statistic shows the size of the effect of each independent variable on the movement towards self-reliance scores, relative to the reference value for the particular variable. The reference value is usually the largest group or in some other way a main point of comparison. Only a small number of variables were statistically significant in the model. As in the bi-variate analysis, these were mostly related to the length of time clients had been receiving help from the service, or, to a lesser extent, respondents’ homelessness histories.

Table 5.10: Results of a linear regression, with the dependent variable the score on ‘How far have you moved towards getting back on your feet?’

	Unstandardised coefficients
Model	B	Standard error	t
(Constant)	5.174	0.612	8.461
State
Vic	0.909	0.375	**2.422
Qld	0.293	0.401	0.730
ACT	1.141	0.698	1.634
Tas	0.703	0.679	1.036
SA	-0.260	0.454	-0.572
NT	-0.454	1.386	-0.328
WA	0.476	0.651	0.731
Reference: NSW
Service type
Medium to long-term accommodation	-0.554	0.302	*-1.834
Day support	-1.227	1.095	-1.167
Outreach	0.921	0.752	1.226
Mixed	0.303	0.417	0.728
Unspecified	1.352	1.431	0.945
Reference: Crisis accommodation
How long getting help from this service?
Under 1 month	0.687	0.511	1.342
3-6 months	0.799	0.359	**2.226
6-12 months	1.051	0.351	***2.996
1-5 years	1.785	0.342	***5.214
More than 5 years	1.588	0.615	**2.582
Reference: 1-3 months
Time since first homeless
Under 1 month	-1.331	1.069	-1.245
6-12 months	0.714	0.530	1.346
1-5 years	0.480	0.446	1.075
5-10 years	0.390	0.488	0.799
10-20 years	0.763	0.506	1.507
More than 20 years	0.854	0.620	1.376
Reference: 1-6 months
How often homeless or in insecure housing?
Once	0.746	0.365	**2.042
Often	-0.432	0.320	-1.350
Never	-0.280	0.437	-0.640
D/K	-1.331	1.069	-1.245
Reference: A few times
Tenure before coming to service
Medium to long-term accommodation	0.949	0.573	1.657
Private boarding	0.197	0.399	0.484
Private rental	-0.205	0.385	-0.533
Public housing	-0.497	0.524	-0.949
Community housing	-0.147	1.237	-0.119
House/unit owned/ buying	-0.254	0.554	-0.459
Boarding house/hostel	-0.770	0.553	-1.395
Car/tent/park/ street/squat	-0.623	0.747	-0.834
Sharing	-.0.085	0.530	-0.160
Caravan	1.946	2.515	0.774
Prison/detention	2.869	2.491	1.151
Multiple responses	-0.241	0.850	-0.284
Other (State care, hospital)	-0.606	0.500	-1.212
Reference: Crisis accommodation
Sex
Male	-.010	0.296	0.032
Reference: Female
Age
25-50 years	-0.496	0.324	-1.531
51 or more	-0.020	0.574	-0.034
Reference: Under 25
Country of birth
Another English-speaking country	0.652	0.465	1.401
A non-English speaking country	0.415	0.443	0.937
Reference: Australia
Speak a language other than English at home?
Yes	-0.326	0.330	-0.987
Reference: no
Indigenous?
Yes	0.296	0.405	0.731
Reference: no
Family status on arrival at service
With partner	0.178	0.655	0.272
With children (on own)	0.229	0.323	0.709
With partner and children	-0.399	0.859	-0.465
With another family member	0.341	0.551	0.619
Reference: Alone
Highest education achieved
Primary school	-1.133	0.866	-1.309
Completed secondary school	0.052	0.323	0.160
Trade certificate/ apprenticeship or similar	-0.348	0.471	-0.738
TAFE qualification	-0.151	0.369	-0.409
University degree	-0.682	0.562	-1.212
No schooling	1.218	1.385	0.879
Reference: Some secondary school
R Square 0.208, Adjusted R Square 0.72, Standard Error of Estimate 2.226 Significance: *10 per cent level, ** 5 per cent level, *** 1 per cent level Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

The effects can also be expressed in terms of their confidence intervals (i.e.- the bands of values within which there is a 95 per cent probability that the coefficients fall). Table 5.11 shows the confidence intervals only for those variables found to be statistically significant.
The factor with the most impact on clients’ scores was the length of time they had been receiving help from the SAAP service, with the impact increasing the longer the period of help. For example, having been receiving assistance for one to five years increases clients’ scores by an estimated 1.79 points, relative to receiving help for only one to three months. To a lesser extent there was also an increase in scores associated with having been homeless only once before (relative to ‘often’). It appears that receiving assistance from a service in Victoria is independently associated with an increase of close to one point on the scale, relative to getting help in NSW. It is not clear why this should be the case, but could perhaps be related to variations in models of service-delivery between States.

The only factor that was shown to be significantly associated with a decrease in client-assessed self-reliance was receiving assistance from a service defined as providing medium- to long-term accommodation, relative to that from crisis accommodation services. However, it was significant only at the 10 per cent level and the confidence interval crosses from the negative to the positive sign, indicating that any effect is likely to be small.

Table 5.11: Significant factors influencing clients’ self-perceived movement towards self-reliance (coefficients and confidence intervals)

Variables	Co-efficient B	Confidence intervals
State
Victoria (relative to NSW)	**0.909	0.171 - 1.646
Service type
Medium to long-term accommodation (relative to Crisis accommodation)	*-0.554	-1.148 - 0.040
How long receiving help from this service?
3-6 months	**0.799	0.093 - 1.505
6-12 months	***1.051	0.361 - 1.741
1-5 years	***1.785	1.112 – 2.459
More than 5 years	**1.588	0.379 – 2.798
Reference: 1-3 months
How often homeless or in insecure housing?
Once (relative to Often)	**0.746	0.028 – 1.465

The tables above provide responses to a summary question on how far clients thought they had progressed towards self-reliance. The next stage was to break down these overall responses across a wide range of life domains, of the kind put forward in Kunnen and Martin’s (2004) study. The elements of this question were based on this and other previous research in the area, and were refined through extensive consultation with stakeholders, as outlined in Section 3. The individual items were grouped within key life domains, and two further question units were added, targeted at people with children and at those whose first language was not English.

Table 5.12: ‘How have these parts of your life changed since you started getting help from this service?’ (row percentages)

Life domains	A lot better	A little better	Same	Worse	Does not apply
Accommodation
Getting a place to live	61.6	24.3	9.7	0.7	3.8
Preparing for my new home (getting furniture, household goods, paying bond etc.)	37.2	24.0	17.4	0.9	20.5
Keeping up with housing payments and bills	42.9	19.1	18.4	1.5	18.1
Looking after my home (cooking, cleaning, shopping)	48.0	15.5	19.5	0.7	16.4
Getting on with neighbours	32.3	17.0	25.4	1.1	24.3
Income/employment
Getting paid work	13.2	13.2	26.6	2.8	44.2
Looking for work	13.9	16.0	27.5	1.8	40.7
Doing training or more education	24.6	19.1	23.5	2.0	30.8
Getting a regular income	26.7	13.7	35.7	3.1	20.9
Managing money	29.9	32.5	24.0	3.5	10.1
Looking after myself
Taking care of my health (taking prescribed medications at the right time etc.)	41.9	21.5	21.1	2.8	12.7
My mental health	34.8	27.9	17.0	2.6	17.8
Getting support with my disability	18.7	9.2	9.6	1.4	61.1
My drug or alcohol problem	23.6	10.9	9.6	1.8	54.1
Getting emotional support/counselling	43.0	24.5	13.9	1.4	17.3
Telling other people what I need (friends, family, Government departments etc.)	41.9	28.5	19.1	1.7	8.8
Relationships with other people
Getting support from family or friends	34.6	24.2	27.7	5.2	8.2
Getting on with people	36.9	29.7	27.5	1.7	4.3
Social contacts	34.6	28.0	28.5	3.4	5.4
Dealing with other organisations
Dealing with Centrelink	37.3	22.9	28.7	2.8	8.3
Using the services that can help me	44.9	29.0	20.2	1.0	4.9
Dealing with child custody/access/child support	17.1	12.7	8.9	2.9	58.5
Getting Apprehended Violence/Exclusion Orders	15.3	7.2	9.0	1.8	66.7
Contact with the law/police/gaols	21.4	10.4	12.7	0.9	54.7
Coping
How I feel about myself	44.5	34.7	16.4	3.6	0.8
Believing I can get back on my feet	53.8	32.2	10.6	2.8	1.7
Communicating and expressing myself	39.1	36.9	19.5	2.8	1.7
Dealing with stress and problems	33.9	39.6	19.3	6.2	1.0
Feeling confident	38.3	37.2	19.5	4.2	0.8
Feeling safe and secure	55.3	26.1	14.2	3.6	0.8
Getting around (transport)
Getting to work	15.2	10.2	16.9	3.0	54.7
Getting to the shops	36.7	19.4	32.7	4.3	7.0
Getting to medical appointments	38.7	19.6	29.3	3.2	9.1
Getting to family, friends or social activities	30.6	20.7	32.0	5.9	10.9
Questions just for those with children (n=322-342)
My relationship with my child(ren)	48.4	16.9	11.1	2.0	21.6
My child(ren)’s health	44.8	11.9	17.3	0.6	25.4
My child(ren)’s schooling	39.5	10.2	12.0	1.5	36.7
My child(ren)’s friendships	42.0	14.4	13.2	1.8	28.5
Access to childcare	32.3	9.0	13.0	2.5	43.2
Looking after my child(ren)	48.9	12.6	14.1	1.2	23.1
Dealing with custody/access/child support	24.0	10.8	11.3	3.4	50.8
Questions for those whose first language is not English (n=187)
Help with speaking English	18.2	7.0	7.5	1.1	66.3
Help with understanding English	20.3	5.9	7.5	0.5	65.8
Main N = 562-630, Missing  = 0-68
Source: SPRC client survey

The question asked ‘How have these parts of your life changed since you started getting help from this service?’. Respondents were invited to tick a box according to whether the particular aspect of life was now a lot better, a bit better, the same, worse or did not apply to them.

Table 5.12 presents the simple frequencies of responses to all the items. At this stage the non-applicable responses are included, as these are important in indicating areas of life different proportions of people felt were not germane to them. The first thing to note about this table is the wide variation in the percentages of ‘non-applicable’ responses. This is not surprising, since clients’ circumstances vary considerably and only a proportion would be expected to see, for example, disability, or drug and alcohol use, or child custody issues, as relevant to them. However, it is interesting to note that the domain with the fewest non-applicable responses was that of ‘coping’, where virtually all clients saw issues of personal self-belief, confidence, communication and dealing with stress as relevant to them. ‘Accommodation’ was the next most relevant (again this is hardly surprising), followed by relationships and connections with other people, being able to tell other people or agencies what they needed, using services, and non-work-related transport.

People for whom the sections on children and English language support did not apply excluded themselves (as was intended), but there were people for whom they were relevant who excluded themselves as well. A significant minority of those with children did not see many of the items relating to children as applicable to them, while around two-thirds of those whose first language was not English did not see language-support as relevant, presumably because they did not have any problems with communicating in or understanding English.

Although it is important to understand these variations in relevance of the different areas of life in which SAAP services might intervene to assist clients, a more useful way of looking at the data is to take out the non-applicable answers and just examine the distribution of responses amongst those who saw the item as relevant. This analysis is presented in Table 5.13.

Table 5.13: ‘How have these parts of your life changed since you started getting help from this service?’, excluding non-applicable responses (row percentages)

	A lot better	A little better	Same	Worse
Accommodation
Getting a place to live	64.0	25.3	10.1	0.7
Preparing for my new home (getting furniture, household goods, paying bond etc.)	46.9	30.2	21.9	1.1
Keeping up with housing payments and bills	52.3	23.3	22.5	1.9
Looking after my home (cooking, cleaning, shopping)	57.3	18.3	23.3	0.8
Getting on with neighbours	42.6	22.5	33.5	1.4
Income/employment
Getting paid work	23.7	23.7	47.6	5.0
Looking for work	23.5	27.1	46.4	3.0
Doing training or more education	35.6	27.6	34.0	2.8
Getting a regular income	33.7	17.3	45.1	3.9
Managing money	33.3	36.2	26.7	3.9
Looking after myself
Taking care of my health (taking prescribed medications at the right time etc.)	48.0	24.6	24.2	3.2
My mental health	42.3	34.0	20.6	3.1
Getting support with my disability	47.9	23.7	24.7	3.7
My drug or alcohol problem	51.4	23.7	20.9	4.0
Getting emotional support/counselling	51.9	29.6	16.8	1.7
Telling other people what I need (friends, family, Government departments etc.)	46.0	31.3	20.9	1.9
Relationships with other people
Getting support from family or friends	37.7	26.4	30.2	5.7
Getting on with people	38.5	31.0	28.7	1.8
Social contacts	36.6	29.6	30.2	3.6
Dealing with other organisations
Dealing with Centrelink	40.6	25.0	31.3	3.1
Using the services that can help me	47.2	30.5	21.1	1.1
Getting Apprehended Violence/Exclusion Orders	46.0	21.7	27.0	5.3
Contact with the law/police/gaols	47.1	23.0	28.0	1.9
Coping
How I feel about myself	44.8	35.0	16.5	3.6
Believing I can get back on my feet	54.3	32.5	10.7	2.5
Communicating and expressing myself	39.8	37.6	19.8	2.9
Dealing with stress and problems	34.3	40.0	19.5	6.2
Feeling confident	38.6	37.6	19.6	4.2
Feeling safe and secure	55.7	26.3	14.4	3.6
Getting around (transport)
Getting to work	33.5	22.6	37.4	6.6
Getting to the shops	39.5	20.8	35.1	4.6
Getting to medical appointments	42.6	21.6	32.2	3.5
Getting to family, friends or social activities	34.3	23.3	35.9	6.6
Questions just for those with children
My relationship with my child(ren)	61.7	21.6	14.1	2.6
My child(ren)’s health	60.0	16.0	23.2	0.8
My child(ren)’s schooling	62.4	16.2	19.0	2.4
My child(ren)’s friendships	58.8	20.2	18.5	2.6
Access to childcare	56.8	15.8	23.0	4.4
Looking after my child(ren)	63.7	16.4	18.4	1.6
Dealing with custody/access/child support	48.8	21.9	22.5	6.9
Questions for those whose first language is not English	54.0	20.6	22.2	3.2
Help with speaking English	54.0	20.6	22.2	3.2
Help with understanding English	59.4	17.2	21.9	1.6
Unweighted mean for all items (does not add to 100 because of rounding)	47.0	25.8	25.6	3.2
Source: SPRC client survey

The answers to this question about improvement (or otherwise) in various aspects of life are in line with the responses to the summary question about movement towards self-reliance. From the mean of all the items, we can see that nearly three-quarters of respondents (73 per cent) felt that these aspects of life were either a lot or a little better than before coming to the service for help. Just over one-quarter felt they were about the same, and only a few (3.2 per cent) felt they had deteriorated. However, these means are unweighted and thus do not take account of the number of people for whom particular items were relevant. Nor is there any sense of the relative importance of particular aspects of life.

Looking at individual items (and also bearing in mind the results of Table 5.12), it is clear that getting accommodation was the area which was most generally relevant and which had improved the most for the largest percentage of respondents (89.3 per cent a lot or a little better). Next were items in the ‘coping’ domain, relating to belief in one’s own ability to get back on one’s feet, and to feeling safe and secure. It is important to recognise that these were also items of broad relevance amongst the sample as a whole, and that SAAP services seem to be having a strongly positive effect on clients’ feelings of safety and personal self-confidence.

Issues to do with children, including relationships with them and being able to look after them, also scored highly but, as we saw earlier, were relevant only to those with children - and not to all of them. By contrast, the areas of life where noticeably less improvement was experienced were those connected with work and income, where about half felt that little had changed, although there was a greater positive impact on getting into training or education. As was stated earlier in the report, this reflects the limited ability of SAAP services to have much impact on that crucial aspect of self-reliance that derives from having an earned income.

So far we have just reported the results for the sample as a whole, but there were some variations according to client characteristics and circumstances. Because of the large number of individual items and the similarity in scores within many of the domain groupings, we selected one key item from each domain to represent it, and cross-tabulated the results by the most important client variables. Relatively few of these showed statistically significant differences, based on chi-square tests, and in most cases the probability of differences being other than sampling effects was quite low. Those that were significant and included sufficient cases are presented in Table 5.14.

The length of time clients had been with the service was the circumstantial variable with the most consistent probability of a bi-variate relationship with the level of improvement in these areas of life. In terms of getting a place to live, there was a linear increase in the proportion of clients describing this as a lot better as the length of time they had been with the service increased, and a decrease in the percentage saying it was unchanged. A similar, though less clear, pattern can be seen in relation to getting a paid job, getting support from family and friends, and belief in the ability to get back on one’s feet. This is consistent with the earlier observation that achieving improvements in homeless people’s circumstances can take time, and services need to be able to devote resources to some clients for considerable periods. However, a related explanation could be that the longer clients are away from the initial event that precipitated their homelessness and brought them to the service, the less potent it is in their minds. These two explanations are not inconsistent, as part of what services provide is the opportunity to break out of difficult circumstances and recover.

Table 5.14: Selected areas of life improvement, by significant client characteristics and circumstances, excluding non-responses

	A lot better	A little better	Same	Worse
Getting a place to live (total)	63.8	25.5	10.0	0.7
By age group*
Under 25 years	59.4	26.4	14.2	0
25-50	67.4	23.9	7.8	0.9
51 or over	57.9	34.2	5.3	2.9
By how long receiving help from this service***
Less than 1 month	44.7	36.2	17.0	2.1
1-3 months	52.3	30.6	16.2	0.9
3-6 months	57.3	33.3	8.3	1.0
6 months to 1 year	77.3	16.0	5.9	0.8
1-5 years	68.8	25.5	5.7	0
Over 5 years	86.2	6.9	6.9	0
Getting paid work (total)	23.2	23.9	47.8	5.1
By sex*
Male	20.8	27.7	43.1	8.5
Female	25.0	21.2	51.1	2.7
By how long receiving help from this service*
Less than 1 month	0	26.1	69.6	4.3
1-3 months	16.7	30.0	53.3	0
3-6 months	22.8	22.8	50.9	3.5
6 months to 1 year	22.0	20.3	45.8	11.9
1-5 years	29.5	26.1	38.6	5.7
Over 5 years	46.2	15.4	38.5	0
Getting emotional support/counselling (total)	51.6	29.7	17.0	1.7
By sex***
Male	40.8	27.0	29.6	2.6
Female	56.9	31.0	10.9	1.3
By country of birth*
Australia	51.2	27.5	19.2	2.1
Another English-speaking country	65.5	24.1	10.3	0
A non-English speaking country	46.7	46.7	6.7	0
Getting support from family or friends (total)	37.8	26.4	30.1	5.7
By family status when arrived at service**
Alone	34.0	28.3	31.5	6.2
With partner	33.3	25.0	33.3	8.5
With children (on own)	43.3	25.3	28.7	2.7
With partner and children	30.8	15.4	23.1	30.8
With another family member	55.9	17.6	23.5	2.9
By how long receiving help from this service**
Less than 1 month	34.1	27.3	34.0	4.6
1-3 months	18.6	28.4	48.0	4.9
3-6 months	43.8	24.9	29.2	2.2
6 months to 1 year	37.6	32.1	22.0	8.3
1-5 years	41.5	23.0	29.6	5.9
Over 5 years	62.1	17.2	13.8	6.9
Using services that can help me (total)	47.4	30.3	21.3	1.1
By sex**
Male	39.7	30.4	27.8	2.1
Female	51.5	30.2	17.7	0.6
By country of birth*
Australia	46.1	29.9	22.8	1.1
Another English-speaking country	54.1	16.2	27.0	2.7
A non-English speaking country	51.5	40.9	7.6	0
Believing I can get back on my feet (total)	54.1	32.6	10.8	2.5
By sex*
Male	49.7	31.7	16.1	2.5
Female	56.3	33.1	8.1	2.5
By country of birth*
Australia	53.6	31.5	12.0	2.9
Another English-speaking country	69.8	20.9	9.3	0
A non-English speaking country	47.1	48.5	2.9	1.5
By how long receiving help from this service*
Less than 1 month	55.1	30.6	14.3	0
1-3 months	40.2	42.7	13.7	3.4
3-6 months	57.1	35.7	4.1	3.1
6 months to 1 year	56.8	30.5	11.0	1.7
1-5 years	62.8	30.3	4.8	2.1
Over 5 years	62.5	12.5	21.9	3.1
Getting to work (transport) (total)	33.2	22.5	37.5	6.7
By sex*
Male	27.6	20.0	39.0	13.3
Female	37.2	24.3	36.5	2.0
By service type*
Crisis/short-term accommodation	23.5	22.4	46.9	7.1
Medium/long-term accommodation	41.6	27.7	23.8	6.9
Other (includes outreach, multiple, day support)	43.8	16.7	52.1	2.1
C2  * p< 0.05, ** p< 0.01, *** P< 0.001 Note: Total percentages vary slightly from those in Table 5.12 because of some missing cases created by non-responses on other variables Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

Sex was the most common intrinsic client characteristic where there was a significant difference in reported outcomes. Women reported doing slightly better at getting paid work than men and in improving their ability to get transport to work. The differences were clearest (and the probability that this was not a sampling artefact was strongest), in the areas of getting emotional support or counselling, and of accessing other services that could help. Remembering that these percentages are only of those who saw these life areas as applicable to them, this is in line with the common observation that women are more likely than men both to seek emotional support and to engage with services. However, it could also be that for these reasons services are more attuned to offering such support to women than to men.

Age appeared to be an issue only in relation to getting accommodation, with the youngest and oldest age groups reporting slightly less improvement than the 25-50 year olds.

As a way of linking the improvements respondents reported in these various life domains with the particular service from which they had been receiving assistance recently, the questionnaire asked them to say how helpful the service had been for them in these broad domains.

Table 5.15 presents the responses, excluding, as before, the non-applicables and other non-responses. The total numbers who responded in each life area are reported in the right-hand column.

The results are consistent with the previous tables in that they indicate a high level of satisfaction with the assistance provided by the services overall, but with some variation across the different life domains. Again, accommodation was the area in which services were rated very helpful by the most people, with ‘looking after myself’ and ‘dealing with other organisations’ also rating highly, as well as ‘my children’ and ‘help with English’, for those to whom these two areas applied.

A number of areas indicated somewhat lower levels of satisfaction for men, including ‘income/employment’, ‘relationships with other people’, ‘coping’, ‘my children’ and ‘help with English’. However, the numbers involved in some of these areas were small and only ‘income/employment, ‘coping’ and ‘my children’ showed statistically significant differences. The proportion of men reporting services unhelpful in relation to their children was larger than the proportion who said they had children with them when they came to the service, which suggests that some of this dissatisfaction may be concerned with child contact or child support issues.

Table 5.15: ‘How helpful has this service been for you in these parts of your life?’, by sex, excluding non-applicable responses (percentages)

	Very helpful	Quite helpful	Not helpful	Total (n)
Life domains
Accommodation
Male	74.4	22.6	3.0	199
Female	77.2	21.1	1.6	399
Persons	76.2	21.7	2.1	568
Income/employment**
Male	49.3	40.5	10.1	148
Female	51.5	45.3	3.0	267
Persons	50.8	43.6	5.5	415
Looking after myself
Male	57.1	37.9	4.9	182
Female	64.7	33.2	2.2	368
Persons	62.2	34.7	3.1	550
Relationships with other people
Male	46.6	45.5	7.9	178
Female	55.7	38.7	5.6	341
Persons	52.6	41.0	6.4	519
Dealing with other organisations
Male	52.4	42.4	5.3	170
Female	61.9	35.2	2.9	349
Persons	58.8	37.6	3.7	519
Coping**
Male	38.9	52.2	8.9	180
Female	55.9	39.3	4.8	356
Persons	50.2	43.7	6.2	536
Getting around
Male	49.7	45.4	4.9	163
Female	53.0	40.1	6.9	304
Persons	51.8	42.0	6.2	467
My children**
Male	44.8	41.4	13.8	58
Female	63.0	33.3	3.7	246
Persons	59.5	34.9	5.6	304
Getting help with English
Male	54.8	34.5	9.7	31
Female	67.5	28.6	3.9	77
Persons	63.9	30.6	5.6	108
C2  significance by sex * p< 0.05, ** p< 0.01, *** P< 0.001 Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

While these questions have addressed the areas of life in which SAAP services provide assistance, it also of interest to see from the clients’ point of view what actual forms of help they have received. One question asked respondents to write in the ways in which they felt the services had helped them. There was a large number of separate responses (1385 in all), many of which included heartfelt expressions of thanks and praise for services and individual staff members. Although we have again had to group the responses into broad categories to give a sense of their numerical concentration (Table 5.16), it is also important to give a flavour of these comments in clients’ own words, and some examples are presented in the box below.

Q: ‘In what ways has this service helped you?’ Examples of clients’ comments

• Many ways, made me a stronger person
  
• Taught me to cook, live independently
  
• Helped me to get my life on track
  
• Help to get off heroin, support to change my life
  
• Opened my eyes to my life and compared it to others
  
• Getting me the best unit in town, where I don’t have to move
  
• Many ways, they have housed me and got me into study
  
• Too many to list!
  
• Off drugs, going better at school, growing up, getting ready for the real world
  
• Shown me I can live on my own and be entirely independent of my ex
  
• My self-esteem back
  
• Accommodation, motivation, respect, self-determination
  
• Immeasurably, foremost by enabling me to feel myself again in a home
  
• Peace of mind
  
• Time to heal and set goals
  
• My mental health is on track, I have somewhere to sleep, I have support
  
• Saved my sanity
  
• Feeling safe and secure
  
• Knowing I can be supported and respected – a lovely new home was found for me
  
• To work things out with my mum and have space
  
• Accommodation, support, kindness, safety
  
• Meals, love, blankets
  
• In every way, loveliest ladies I’ve ever met, so glad I came here!
  
• Helped me realise there’s help and can start again
  
• Stable house for my kids, out of bad relationship, made me strong
  
• Welcomed me into a wonderful community and eight years later I still come here
  
• Job, flat, support at mediation and court, budgeting, living skills, certificate
  
• Getting back to school, getting benefit and ID
  
• I’ve got my life back, my dignity, for the first time I have hope

Table 5.16: ‘In what ways has this service helped you?’, grouped responses (numbers and percentages)

Types of help	Frequency	%
Accommodation	335	24.2
Other services	119	8.6
Other support (unspecified)	110	7.9
Independence	67	4.8
Safety	65	4.7
Money	60	4.3
Emotional support	59	4.3
Help with children	56	4.0
Praise for staff	56	4.0
‘In many ways’	52	3.8
Food	46	3.3
Life skills	46	3.3
Security/stability	45	3.2
Other necessities	44	3.2
Relationships/social contacts	36	2.6
Schooling, training and qualifications	30	2.2
Miscellaneous	26	1.9
‘Starting again’	24	1.7
Self-respect	18	1.3
Detoxification and AOD support	18	1.3
Legal issues	16	1.2
Health	13	0.9
Employment	12	0.9
Immigration	10	0.7
Mental health	9	0.6
Miscellaneous	26	1.9
No response	13	0.9
Total	1385	100

‘Accommodation’ was the most frequently mentioned category, as would be expected given that this is the primary purpose of these services. More interesting are some of the other forms of help noted by respondents. Although ‘food’ was mentioned by only a small proportion of respondents (seven per cent or 46 people), it still means that there are Australian citizens who cannot provide themselves with the most basic necessity of all. There were also 44 people (some of whom would have been the same people) who were provided with other basic necessities – clothes, laundry, shower, furniture, toiletries, linen, bond, utility deposits, telephone, storage for possessions, an accommodation address (‘mail’), and presents for their children. Combined with the fact that they also lacked access to another basic necessity, shelter, it means that there are levels of poverty in a wealthy nation like Australia that are absolute. This is not relative poverty, a matter of community standards, the lack of which, although important for people’s comfort, wellbeing and self-respect, is not immediately threatening to health and life. This is poverty as a lack of the basic necessities for human existence.

Homeless people who approach SAAP services are also likely to get help from other sources. The survey asked them to write in whom else they had found helpful. This provides a useful indicator of the extent to which SAAP clients can be seen as isolated or socially excluded. Their responses were grouped into a number of categories, as shown in Table 5.17. If we assume that a non-response is likely to indicate that respondents could not think of anyone else who was helpful, the total reporting no other sources of help is around one-quarter (24.9 per cent). Of those who indicated no one else helped, some examples of the comments were: ‘only this service’, ‘just this service’, ‘you guys are the only ones that give damn’, and ‘no one has offered me the support I received here and I have been a State ward since age three’. One woman insisted that she was entirely self-reliant and did not need anyone else: ‘ME and my babies – they help a lot’.

The total mentioning family or friends as a source of help, either alone or in combination with other services or workers, was more than two-fifths (43.4 per cent), while nearly half (49.8 per cent) mentioned other services or workers.

Overall, while a significant minority appeared to have few connections or sources of help outside the SAAP service itself, and thus might be seen as socially excluded, most did report having such connections, either with family and friends or with other services and individual workers, about whom respondents often wrote with warmth and affection.

Table 5.17: ‘Apart from this service, who else has been helpful? (for example – other services, family, friends etc.)’, percentage of responses in grouped categories

	%
Family or friends	26.0
Other services	24.9
No response	16.8
Other services + family and/or friends	15.4
No one	8.1
Workers individually identified	4.4
Workers + family and/or friends	2.1
Other	2.2
Total	100
N = 630 Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

In spite of the progress that many respondents indicated they had made towards getting back on their feet, most were still receiving help from a homelessness service, either in the form of temporary accommodation or through case management and other outreach support. We therefore asked them to assess what areas of life they thought they were still likely to need support with in the future, by ticking as many boxes as they liked from the grouped list of life domains.

As a broad indicator of the relative levels of still unmet need across the whole sample, Table 5.18 shows the overall percentages that thought they would still need help in the given area. In this case the total percentage includes those who had previously reported items within the various life domains as not being applicable to them.

Table 5.18: ‘What do you think you might still need help with in the future?’ (percentages)

Life domain	%
Accommodation	59.5
Income/employment	46.8
Looking after myself	36.7
Relationships with other people	31.3
Dealing with other organisations	37.8
Coping	54.8
Getting around	32.1
My children	22.1
Getting help with English	7.9
N = 630 Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

Nearly three-fifths said they thought they would still need help with housing – not surprisingly, since many would still be living in temporary accommodation. Nearly 55 per cent ticked the box for the area of ‘coping’, including various items concerned with dealing with stress. Close to half thought they would need further support with maintaining an income and employment - and we saw from earlier questions that clients did not tend to see SAAP services as a particularly effective source of help in this area. Substantial numbers thought they would still need help with maintaining relationships and dealing with other organisations like Centrelink. Although only just over one-fifth of the sample ticked the box for ‘my children’, it needs to be remembered that only about one-third had children with them when they came to the service and two-fifths reported being with children at the time of the survey, so it was still a significant issue for a large proportion of these clients.

5.5 Housing, employment and income status: before and now

The final piece of analysis concerns indicators of client status in the areas of housing, employment and income sources before and after receiving help from the SAAP service. These are likely to be key direct indicators of improvement in client self-reliance following service use. However, they turned out to be perhaps the least

satisfactory element of the questionnaire for obtaining full and consistent responses from clients.

First, respondents were asked to say what kind of family living arrangement they had had just before coming to the service for help. Twenty-seven per cent said they were living on their own, 24 per cent were living with their partners in their own places, 18 per cent with parents or other family in their own places, and 20 per cent with friends. Nearly four per cent gave multiple responses, two per cent ‘other’, and four per cent did not respond.

Then respondents were asked to tick a box for the type of accommodation they were living in just before coming to the service for help and the type of accommodation they were in now. The ‘before’ and ‘now’ boxes were placed in parallel (see Appendix A Q. 15). Unfortunately, a substantial number of respondents (23 per cent) seemed not to have understood the layout of these questions and did not respond to the ‘now’ column. There were also a considerable number of multiple responses (11 per cent ‘before’, four per cent ‘after’), although respondents were asked to tick only one box. These multiple responses do not represent proper responses to what ‘best’ described their situations, but they are not necessarily inconsistent, because the accommodation categories were not fully discrete. The data therefore do not allow us to analyse the full sample for movements from the kind of accommodation before coming to the service to that occupied at the time of the survey. Consistent results can, however, be presented for just under three-quarters of the sample.3

Table 5.19 presents the responses to accommodation ‘now’, cross-tabulated with those for ‘before’. Because the numbers are mostly small, it is better to read the results as numbers rather than percentages (although percentages are given for the totals of both ‘before’ and ‘now’). Housing tenure before coming to the service was quite widely distributed, with close to one-fifth (17.8 per cent) already being in crisis accommodation of some form, just over 30 per cent boarding or renting privately, nearly eight per cent being literally roofless or in a squat, and very few in public or community housing. Tenure at the time of the survey, however, was quite different, with a marked shift towards crisis and medium-term housing (as would be expected), but also towards social rented housing (especially community housing) and a substantial decline in the proportion living in the most insecure forms of housing. In some respects this is simply a description of what SAAP is meant to do – that is, provide crisis and medium-term housing, and help clients move towards more secure forms of longer-term accommodation – but it is encouraging to see these aims played out in the survey results.

Another point of interest is that there were very few clients in the survey who said they had come directly from State care, even though it is known that young people leaving care are highly vulnerable to homelessness.

3 Analysis of non-responses to this question showed that they were somewhat more likely to come from clients of non-residential SAAP services (outreach and day support), from services in SA and WA, from men, from people identifying as Indigenous, and from those born in Australia.

Table 5.19: ‘Which of the following best describes the type of accommodation you had before you came to the service, and where you are living now?’ (please tick one box only in each column)’, accommodation now by accommodation before (numbers)

	Now
Before	Crisis	Medium term	Private boarding	Private rental	Public housing	Community housing	Owned/ buying	Boarding/ hostel	Car/tent/ park etc	Sharing	Caravan	Prison/ detention	Multiple	Other	Total (%)
Crisis accommodation	12	37	3	2	5	12	2	4	1	1	0	0	4	0	83 (17.8)
Medium to long-term	9	5	0	5	2	5	0	1	0	0	0		1	0	28 (6.0)
Private boarding	19	21	4	8	4	4	1	2	1	0	1	0	1	0	66 (14.1)
Private rental	31	19	4	8	8	4	0	1	1	0	0	0	2	0	78 (16.7)
Public housing	10	8	0	1	6	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	30 (6.4)
Community Housing	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2 (0.4)
House/unit owned/ buying	8	6	0	6	3	1	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	29 (6.2)
Boarding house/hostel	11	6	0	0	3	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	24 (5.1)
Car/tent/park/ street/squat	16	2	1	3	2	9	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	35 (7.9)
Sharing	13	7	0	0	2	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	25 (5.4)
Caravan	3	3	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	9 (1.9)
Prison/detention	3	0	0	0	3	1	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	10 (2.1)
Multiple resp.	5	10	2	4	3	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	18	0	44 (9.4)
Other (State care, hospital)	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	4 (0.8)
Total (%) Missing = 163	140 (30.0)	125 (26.8)	14 (3.0)	40 (8.6)	44  (9.4)	45        (9.6)	10      (2.1)	14 (3.0)	1 (0.2)	2 (0.4)	1 (0.2)	0 (0)	27 (5.8)	2 ( 0.4)	467 (100)
Source: SPRC SAAP Client survey

 

Table 5.20: ‘Which of the following best describes your work situation before you came to the service, and your situation now?’ (please tick one box only in each column)’, work status before by work status now (numbers)

	Now
Before	F/t work	P/t work	Casual work	UE: looking for work	UE: not looking for work	Studying	Voluntary work	Home responsibilities	Retired	Multiple	Total
Full-time work	5	0	0	8	1	0	2	3	0	0	19
Part-time work	0	12	2	4	1	0	1	5	0	2	27
Casual work	1	1	11	10	2	1	0	1	0	1	28
Unemployed - looking for work	9	2	5	62	2	5	4	3	0	6	98
Unemployed - not looking for work	1	1	0	2	36	0	0	0	2	2	44
Studying	4	2	0	3	3	28	2	2	0	2	44
Voluntary work	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	3
Home/family responsibilities	0	2	2	11	2	6	3	95	0	2	123
Retired	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	0	6
Multiple	2	0	0	3		1	1	2	1	11	21
Total Missing	22	20	20	103	47	41	14	111	9	28	413 217
Source: SPRC SAAP client survey

Questions on work and income sources before coming to the service for help and ‘now’ were organised in a similar way and also had high levels of non- or multiple response, particularly to the ‘now’ column. For work, there was an 11 per cent non-response rate to the ‘before’ question, but a 31 per cent non-response rate to ‘now’, while the rates of multiple responses were seven and five per cent respectively. Full answers were available for just under two-thirds of the sample and these are shown in Table 5.20, again in numbers.

The ‘Total’ column on the right shows the overall distribution of work status before clients came to the service. The largest single group (just under 30 per cent) was made up of people with home or family responsibilities (mainly caring for children or someone with a disability), while 34 per cent were unemployed, either looking for work or out of the labour market, and 18 per cent were in some form of work.

The ‘Total’ row at the bottom shows the distribution of work status at the time of the survey. The table indicates a fair degree of stability, as can be seen by following the diagonal red line, but also a certain amount of movement between work statuses since coming to the SAAP service. Overall there was a marginal decrease in the level of employment and a slight increase in unemployment. There was also some movement from home responsibilities into study, part-time work and volunteering, reflecting the fact that many women who had left their partners following domestic violence now had to find ways to support themselves and their children alone. The majority of those who were unemployed before remained unemployed, but it is encouraging to see that around one-quarter of those looking for work had moved into some form of work, volunteering or study.

What appears less positive is the small group (fewer than five per cent) who were in full-time work before they came to the service, only just over one-quarter of whom remained in work at the time of the survey. This may be because the events that precipitated these respondents’ homelessness were either directly connected with job loss, or made it hard for them to retain work once their accommodation was lost.

The final table shows clients’ reported sources of income before they came to the service and at the time of the survey (Table 5.21). This was subject to the same limitations described for the previous ‘before’ and ‘now’ questions, and full results are available for only 76 per cent of the sample.

Table 5.21: ‘Where did you mainly get your income from before you came to this service and where do you mainly get your income from now?’ (please tick one box only in each column)’, income before by income now (percentages)

	Income now
Income before	Paid work	Centrelink	Family/ partner/ friends	No income	Other	Total (row)	Total (column)
Paid work	54.6	43.1	0	0	1.4	100	15.1
Centrelink payment	5.9	93.2	0.6	0	0.3	100	71.1
Family/ partner/ friends	10.3	62.1	17.2	10.3	0	100	6.1
No income	32.3	51.6	0	16.1	0	100	6.5
Other	0	83.3	0	0	16.7	100	1.3
Total N = 477 Missing = 153	15.3	80.9	1.5	1.7	0.6	100	100
Source: SPRC SAAP Client survey

There was relatively little change in income sources between the two points in time. Fifteen per cent reported being in paid work before they came to the service for help and the same proportion reported being in work at the time of the survey. There was an increase between the two time points in the percentage reporting being on Centrelink payments, which at first sight might appear inconsistent with a goal of self-reliance. However, the movement on to payments was mainly from those reporting no income or those reliant on income from family/partners or friends. Although there were only a small number of people in this situation, nearly two-thirds had moved onto Centrelink payments and 10 per cent had found paid work. In many cases these are likely to be women who have left violent partners and have to find an income source of their own. This is consistent with the argument made by some of the agencies and individuals consulted for the study, that one step in progress towards self-reliance may often be accessing services such as Centrelink, so as to begin to establish financial independence.

We also asked respondents the types of Centrelink payment they were on before accessing the service and now. Most commonly these were Parenting Payment, Disability Support Pension, Youth Allowance and Newstart Allowance, with a small number on other payments or combinations of payments, and there was very little change between the two points in time.

5.6 Summary of results

The client survey attracted 630 returns, some of which had missing responses to particular questions.

Almost four-fifths of respondents reported having first been homeless at least one year previously, and nearly half more than five years previously. A few talked of homelessness having lasted most or all of their lives or as even being intergenerational. Sixteen per cent had

only had one period of homelessness, but 23 per cent had been homeless ‘often’. Men were more likely than women to report frequent periods of homelessness. Although the recruitment criteria created a bias towards clients whose service use was more than short-term, a strikingly large proportion reported receiving help from the SAAP service for long periods of time: 28 per cent of men and 24 per cent of women said they had been receiving help for between one and five years, and for 10 per cent of men the assistance had lasted more than five years.

The most common reasons given for seeking assistance from the SAAP service were relationship breakdown, domestic violence, abuse and other relational pressures (particularly for the female clients). Money problems, eviction or other loss of accommodation, problem alcohol or drug use, and mental health problems were also important factors.

When asked what self-reliance, or ‘getting back on your feet’, meant to them, the most common response concerned getting accommodation, followed by various aspects of resuming control over their lives. Getting a job, having money and safety were also frequently mentioned, while children’s wellbeing was particularly important for those who had children. The barriers cited to getting back on their feet included, in particular, lack of money and accommodation, but also problems with other people; lack of employment; drug and alcohol problems; depression, stress and other health factors; lack of support; and clients’ own negative attitudes.

However, when asked to mark where on a 10-point scale clients felt they now were, compared to how they were before they came to the SAAP service for help, more than two-thirds said they had moved beyond the half-way point, and more than one-third felt they were at point 8 or beyond. Only five per cent said they had made no progress at all. Overall, women reported having made somewhat better progress than men. Bi-variate and multi-variate analysis suggested that the most important factors influencing self-rated outcomes were the length of time the client had been receiving help from the service and, to a lesser extent, the number of times people had been homeless.

Respondents were also asked whether things were better or worse in a number of separate domains of life since they came to the service for help. Expressed as an unweighted mean across all these areas, nearly three-quarters of respondents (73 per cent) felt that these aspects of life were either a lot or a little better than before. Just over one-quarter felt they were about the same and only a few felt that they had deteriorated. However, these do not take account of the number of people for whom particular items were irrelevant.

Getting accommodation was the area which was most generally relevant and which had improved the most for the largest percentage of respondents (89 per cent a lot or a little better). Next were various items in the ‘coping’ domain, especially belief in one’s own ability to get back on one’s feet, and feeling safe and secure. These were also items of broad relevance amongst the sample as a whole; SAAP services seem to be having a strong positive effect on clients’ feelings of safety and personal self-confidence.

The areas of life where less improvement was experienced were those connected with work and income, where about half felt that little had changed, although there was greater positive impact on getting into training or education.

The length of time clients had been with the service was again the circumstantial variable most consistently linked with improvement in key areas of life. There was a linear increase in the proportion of clients describing access to accommodation as a lot better the longer they had been with the service, and a decrease in the percentage saying it was unchanged. Women reported doing slightly better at getting paid work than men, and in improving their ability to get transport to work. The sex differences were clearest in the areas of getting emotional support or counselling, and in accessing other services that could help.

There was a high level of satisfaction overall with the assistance provided, but with some variation across the life domains. Accommodation was the area for which the largest proportion of people rated the services as very helpful, with ‘looking after myself’, ‘dealing with other organisations’ and, for those to whom it applied, ‘my children’ and ‘help with English’ also rating highly.

One question asked respondents to write in how they felt the services had helped them. There was a large number of separate responses (1385 in all), many of which included heartfelt expressions of thanks and praise for services. ‘Accommodation’ was the most frequently mentioned category, as would be expected given that this is the primary purpose of these services. Some of the other forms of help included food and basic necessities, indicating there are levels of poverty in Australia that are absolute rather than just relative.

Homeless people who approach SAAP services are also likely to get help from other sources. The survey asked respondents to write in whom else they had found helpful. This provides an indicator of how far SAAP clients can be seen as socially excluded. The total reporting no other sources of help was almost one-quarter, while 43 per cent mentioned family or friends as a source of help, either alone or in combination with other services or workers. Nearly half mentioned other services or workers.

In response to a question about what areas of life clients thought they would still need support with in the future, nearly three-fifths said help with housing – not surprisingly, since many would still be living in temporary accommodation. Nearly 55 per cent also mentioned the area of ‘coping’, including dealing with stress, while close to half thought they would need further support with maintaining income and employment. Substantial numbers thought they would still need help with maintaining relationships, and dealing with other organisations like Centrelink.

Client status in the areas of housing, employment and income sources before and after receiving help from the SAAP service turned out to be the least satisfactory element of the questionnaire for obtaining full and consistent responses from clients. Full responses were available for only around three-quarters of the sample.

Housing tenure before coming to the service was widely distributed, with 18 per cent already being in crisis accommodation, just over 30 per cent boarding or renting privately, and nearly eight per cent literally roofless or in a squat. Tenure at the time of the survey was quite different, with a marked shift towards crisis and medium term housing, but also towards social rented housing (especially community housing), and a substantial decline in the proportion living in the most insecure forms of housing.Before coming to the service, 34 per cent were unemployed (either looking for work or out of the labour market), 30 per cent had home or family responsibilities, and 18 per cent were in some form of work. By the time of the survey there was a marginal decrease in the level of employment and a slight increase in unemployment. There was also some movement from home responsibilities into study, part-time work and volunteering, reflecting the fact that many women who had left their partners following domestic violence now had to support themselves alone. The majority of those who were previously unemployed remained unemployed, but around one-quarter of those looking for work had moved into work, volunteering or study.

Of the five per cent who were in full-time work before they came to the service, only one-quarter remained in work at the time of the survey. This may be because the events that precipitated homelessness were either directly connected with job loss or made it hard for them to retain work.

There was relatively little change in income sources between the two points in time, but an increase in the percentage reporting being on Centrelink payments. This might appear inconsistent with a goal of self-reliance, but the movement on to payments was mainly from those reporting no income or from those reliant on income from family/partners or friends. Although there were only a small number of people in this situation, nearly two-thirds had moved onto Centrelink payments and 10 per cent had found paid work. In many cases these were women who had left violent partners and had to find an income source of their own. It might be concluded that those respondents who accessed Centrelink payments were starting on the path of financial independence and in a better position to gain access to associated services aimed at increasing their job opportunities. This is consistent with the goals of promoting self-reliance.

The most common types of Centrelink payment received were Parenting Payment, Disability Support Pension, Youth Allowance and Newstart Allowance, and there was very little movement between payment types.

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