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5. Poverty & Affordable Housing

Homelessness Information Kit for Volunteers

 

Poverty is the central factor in all homelessness. Too often, in contemporary discussions on homelessness this is left out of the picture, or sidelined as just one cause among many…

(Narelle Clay, Keynote Speech - Homelessness Summit, Parliament House Sydney, May 2001).

Income access and the availability of affordable housing

Having enough money to purchase or rent housing is the key to exiting homelessness. Whether or not some individuals may require ongoing mental health or community support to sustain housing is important however an affordable housing option has to be available.

To be able to pay for appropriate housing an individual or family must have access to adequate income. This income may come from paid work or where people are not able to access work (because of sickness, disability, parenting responsibilities etc) from income support payments from the Commonwealth Government.

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Disrupted education and work skills

Mental Illness

As mentioned previously in the section on mental illness, some psychotic conditions may first affect a person when they are young adults. A time when people are usually completing education and learning work skills. Having a mental illness at this time in life can have an enduring impact on someone’s capacity to work throughout their lifetime. This does not have to be the case, but without appropriate treatment, community support and rehabilitation it can be the case.

Disability

Other people who have other conditions such as an intellectual disability, physical illness or addictions and who experience chronic homelessness may also have a limited capacity to find and retain employment. Again, this does not have to be the case but may be the case in some instances.

Literacy

There appears to be an over-representation of people who are functionally illiterate in the chronically homeless population. Such literacy difficulties may indicate a disrupted or difficult education and can make it difficult to people to find and retain regular employment.

Family Breakdown

People who leave dysfunctional families when they are young may also experience disrupted educations. They may also experiment with drugs and may become dependent on substances. Again, these events, as well as being traumatic, can leave an enduring impact on a person’s capacity to obtain and retain paid employment.

Education and Training

Completing disrupted educations and acquiring living and work skills can be important components to exiting homelessness and the capacity of an individual to pay for housing.

Access to secure work options

Another important aspect is the actual availability of adequately paid and secure employment. As some work (especially work that may require few skills) has become increasingly casual,  it can be more difficult to retain housing in between jobs or if someone becomes unemployed unexpectedly.

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Income support payments and affordable housing

For people who need to receive income support for long periods or throughout their lives, access to affordable housing is essential. Purchasing a home is not possible on income support payments. Paying for private rental is possible but difficult. Some people may need to spend up to 80% of income support payments on housing costs.

Public Housing

Public housing is often the only realistic option for people on income support payments. Public housing waiting lists are long. In NSW being homeless will make a person eligible to access the normal housing register if their income falls below a certain level, usually that of the Federal income assistance program. 

To access priority housing an individual will need to have other risk factors (such as disability, ill health etc) to make it onto the list. Families who have children or single pregnant women will find it easier to access the priority waiting list, but it can still take some time to obtain public housing.

Other types of affordable housing, such as transitional or medium term housing may be able to be accessed through contact with accommodation or housing agencies, such as the major charities.

Community Housing programs may also be an option.

Housing affordability

The Council to Homeless Persons notes that:

Lack of long-term affordable housing can encourage mobility as people try to find and keep appropriate dwellings. Recourse to temporary and stopgap accommodation is associated with frequent moves and can often lead to overcrowding. There is increasing evidence that a growing number of households in the private rental market are in ‘housing stress’ (i.e people paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent).

The number of low and moderate income rental households experiencing housing stress across the seven capital cities increased by 90,000 between 1986 and 1996 and there were an estimated 227,480 private rental households in housing stress throughout Australia (Berry and Hall, 2001, p61).

Public housing in many states has not grown sufficiently to meet the demand from low-income households. Whilst access to public housing varies between regions and states, many people have to wait indefinitely to access this form of housing. Long-term community housing is still a very small tenure in Australia and therefore cannot meet the housing needs of many people.

Council to Homeless Persons, Overview of Homelessness. Word document

Planning for affordable housing

Many local councils have developed affordable housing strategies to help ensure adequate stock of affordable housing in local communities. See web links for examples of affordable housing strategies.

‘Housing First’ Programs

A relatively new model of housing and service provision for chronically homeless people has been developed in the United States. Pioneered by the organisation Common Ground, it involves moving chronically homeless people straight into a long term, affordable and secure housing and providing whatever support is needed (eg. Drug and alcohol treatment; mental health support etc). This has been shown to work quite successfully and many people have sustained long term tenancies.

This is a little different to the predominant Australian homeless assistance model which involves living in a congregate care crisis hostel for a period of time whilst trying to find a transitional or long term housing outcome after that.

South Australia is currently planning to implement a ‘Housing First’ program based on the Common Ground model.

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Links

Housing Issues

Affordable housing strategies

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Please Note:
While care is taken to ensure accuracy, the City of Sydney cannot guarantee that information expressed here is correct and recommends that users exercise their own skill and care with respect to its use. The City of Sydney makes no warranty or undertaking, whether expressed or implied, nor does it assume any legal liability, whether direct or indirect.