Big Issue sellers get social contact and dignity out of their work, but it’s not a secure pathway out of poverty and homelessness. Social enterprises enable small steps; governments can do much more.
The homeless camp in Martin Place, Sydney, is an uncomfortable reminder of a deeper systemic crisis.
Brendan Esposito/AAP
Taking the long view of homelessness can reveal patterns that explain how and why people get caught up in conditions not of their making.
The person using this shelter in New South Wales certainly meets the official definition of homeless, but how they see themselves is important.
Bidgee/Wikimedia Commons
People who self-identify as ‘homeless’ have poorer wellbeing than others in the same circumstances, yet that’s the label they must adopt to qualify for help.
People have camped in the long grass since colonisation. From this perspective, bans on the practice are a denial of Indigenous agency, culture and rights to country.
Photo: K. Pollard
In contrast to perceptions of other homeless people sleeping rough, Darwin’s “long-grassers” are applying a long cultural tradition to deal with the situation in which they find themselves.
Richard Flory, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Americans are increasingly choosing not to identify with any religious tradition. But this group of irreligious people is a complex one – with different relationships to religion.
Under pressure from media coverage like this, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle wants to ban people from sleeping on Melbourne’s streets.
Herald Sun
Bans are ineffective when used against populations that have nowhere else to go. Importantly, research shows that punitive approaches to the homeless cost more than supported housing strategies.
Homeless children charged in NSW with a criminal offence who are unable to meet bail conditions are being kept in custody. It’s due, in part, to a well-meant but flawed section of the Bail Act.
Hosier Lane, the iconic Melbourne laneway.
David Kelly
Businesses have traded on graffiti and the air of edginess that draws visitors to Melbourne’s laneways. But they draw the line at sharing space with the homeless, whose right to the city is denied.
Reliable data about the homeless population is vital when developing policy, allocating funding and developing services for vulnerable people. But first the census needs to find them.
High rents and benefits restrictions have led to spiralling costs when it comes to housing London’s homeless.
With so many city dwellers enjoying the benefits of digital connectivity, it is easy to overlook the barriers to access that homeless people face.
Reuters
We have come to see being digitally connected as part of the fabric of life in the city, but staying connected is a daily struggle for the marginalised and homeless.
Margot Kushel, University of California, San Francisco
Field research in Oakland highlights a major issue that Americans have yet to face up to: how to deal with growing numbers of homeless older people in our streets.