Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On any given night, over 122,000 Australians are without a home. This is an increase of five per cent on the 2016 census. Of those, around 54,000, or 44 per cent, are female. Women account for 81 per cent of the increase in homelessness since 2016. There were 17,646 who were under 12 years of age and 11,302 who were aged 12 to 18. That's around 29,000 young people under the age of 18 who were homeless on census night in 2021, and we know that if you experience homelessness as a child you're much more likely to experience it as an adult as well.

In my former life I was the co-chair of the Adelaide Zero Project from 2017 to 2021 and I had the honour of working with Baroness Louise Casey from the UK and Dr Nonie Brennan, the previous CEO of All Chicago, in their work for the Institute of Global Homelessness. This gave me fascinating insights into homelessness around the world and, specifically, what works and what doesn't work in a First World context. What works is 'housing first'. Keeping people on the streets while you make them fix their other problems that brought them into homelessness or that they've developed since being on the street just doesn't work. However, 'housing first' doesn't mean 'housing only'. It's important, when you put someone in a house, that they have the services in place to help them stabilise, resolve the issues that brought them into homelessness and resolve the issues that are a result of being on the streets.

The Adelaide Zero Project was based on the sector working together cooperatively—the not-for-profits, the government agencies, such as Health, police, drug and alcohol services, and the local council. Agencies shared data, with consent, on the people experiencing homelessness, those sleeping rough in the CBD—their service needs and their housing needs. This ensured that we were using our resources effectively and efficiently. The resulting by-name list, a list of people sleeping rough in the Adelaide CBD, as well as enabling tailored service provision, provided important population-level data. Eighty-five per cent of participants on the by-name list reported having a medical condition, 15 per cent had two conditions and 11 per cent had three or more. It's not a healthy population.

We know that, while some people become homeless as a result of medical conditions, sleeping rough is not good for your physical or mental health. Rough sleepers have an average life expectancy of around 50 years, and if you don't have mental illness when you go on the streets, you probably will have soon after. As a result of hypervigilance from never being sure if you're safe, poor sleep, poor food, never knowing if you're actually going to get a meal, exposure to the weather, the chances are that you'll develop depression and anxiety, not to mention the physical illnesses that come from that level of exposure.

The health burden means that rough sleepers are frequent attendees at emergency departments. Dr Cameron Parsell from the University of Queensland did a costing on how much it costs us as a society to support someone living rough on the streets. Between homelessness services, health services, police, council et cetera, it costs $45,000 a year to support someone who is living on the streets, and that was 2016 stats. Putting someone into social housing with full support services—keeping in mind that not everybody needs full support services and, for many, the services are only short lived—costs $32,000 a year on average. So we can save $13,000 a year, per person, by doing the right thing by people who are homeless. It's not only good from a human rights and empathetic perspective; it's also good from a financial perspective.

What is the answer to homelessness? Ultimately, housing ends homelessness—although, as I've mentioned, it needs to be housing with services. I'm pleased to see the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness focus on the housing crisis generally, and also on the homelessness response. The renegotiation of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement with the states, with a one-year extension to current funding to enable this to happen, is a really important step forward. The homelessness sector is keen for reform. They're keen to make sure they're providing the most effective services to end homelessness forever for each individual, and to work on preventing homelessness—to turn off the tap, so to speak. But they need their agreements and their funding from government to enable them to make that reform.

Ultimately, housing supply—and supply of social housing, in particular—is a particular problem for ending homelessness. When someone is homeless, they're unlikely to be able to access any other form of housing other than social housing. The $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator will deliver $135 million for South Australia to boost social housing stock. The historic increase in Commonwealth rent assistance, which is the largest ever, will help people exiting homelessness to be able to pay rent in social or affordable rental properties. Working with the states to strengthen renters' rights, including minimum rental standards, and working towards ending no-cause evictions will also help people stabilise in properties. That's so because, even though people exiting homelessness are rarely in a position to move into affordable housing or purchase homes, the housing sector as a whole benefits from additional supply in any part of the sector. Relieving pressure in one area relieves pressure across the sector.

The National Housing Accord, aiming for 1.2 million new homes, federal funding last year to deliver an extra 10,000 affordable homes across the country, the additional $575 million into NHFIC's National Housing Infrastructure Facility, and the Home Guarantee Scheme—which has helped more than 67,000 people across the country into homes since the election—are all making a difference not only to the housing crisis but also, specifically, to homelessness. I'm personally looking forward to the Help to Buy scheme. We've had a shared equity scheme in South Australia, along similar lines, operating for 30 years through HomeStart. For many people exiting homelessness after a few years in social housing, this is a viable pathway into homeownership. We know that owning your home is a great safeguard against future homelessness.

Finally, the Housing Australia Future Fund is still being held up in the Senate by the Greens, Liberals, Nationals and One Nation. I recently visited Housing Choices Australia in Adelaide and saw their plans to redevelop a city block in Adelaide for their new facility for Catherine House women's homelessness service, together with additional social housing. Catherine House, where I used to work, does a fantastic job helping women find a pathway out of homelessness, but their current properties are ageing and are not fit for purpose. This proposed combined facility, with social housing on site, will enable them to provide step-down support to women as they move from homelessness through social housing and then, hopefully, into private rental. I was told that these plans are ready to go, and they're awaiting the HAFF for funding. The community housing sector wants certainty of funding over time, and that's what the future fund provides. They want to build now, but they also want to build next year, the year after and the year after that. I urge those standing in the way of more social housing to put those experiencing homelessness first, before their political gain.