More people than expected needed help, and the states have found stable housing for less than a third of rough sleepers who were put up in hotels. A hands-off federal government simply isn’t helping.
Australia has housed rough sleepers during the pandemic, unlike the US, but it’s a temporary fix.
Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA/AAP
Australia found shelter for more than 33,000 rough sleepers and other homeless people during the pandemic, but a coming surge in homelessness demands a comprehensive national housing strategy.
The number of people made homeless is forecast to increase massively by the end of the year.
PA
Providing a bed for the night in a car park for people sleeping rough just treats them as a charity case. There are better ways to tackle homelessness.
Accusations of ‘professional’ begging are misleading, intended to demonise those who beg as deceitful.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP Image
Last week seven people were arrested for being alleged members of a begging ‘syndicate’. Stories like this entrench public perceptions of the homeless as criminal.
In 2001, around half of homeless people were found in capital cities. Today it’s almost two-thirds.
Photographee.eu/Shutterstock
Homelessness in Australia is increasingly concentrated in the capital cities, where nearly two in every three people without a home are now found. That’s the finding of a study of the data since 2001.
Autistic people have an elevated risk of homelessness, according to a new study.
Governments have all but abandoned the commitments made a decade ago when Kevin Rudd launched a national campaign to reduce homelessness.
Dean Lewins/AAP
A decade after the launch of a national campaign against homelessness, the trends are all going the wrong way. A new annual report highlights what’s gone wrong and what must be done.
Tributes at Westminster station to a homeless man found dead.
Isabel Togoh/PA Wire
The leader of Windsor council wants the streets cleared of homeless people ahead of the royal wedding – saying some people are choosing to sleep rough.
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.