Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In the last six weeks, four women have died on the streets of Perth. In 2020, 56 homeless people died in Perth. Forty-four people have died on the streets since August last year. One-third of those people are First Nations. I note the families of the deceased are coming together now to ask for an inquiry. We echo the families' calls for a coronial inquest into these deaths.

I am not going to sugar-coat this. There is a housing crisis in Western Australia. According to every indicator, the WA housing system is in absolute crisis, and First Nations people are experiencing firsthand the deadly toll of homelessness. The by-name list for Perth CBD, Fremantle and surrounding areas shows that 995 people are experiencing chronic homelessness, 17 per cent of whom are First Nations people. Refuges are currently turning away women and children, and staff across the entire sector are in complete distress.

Dr Betsy Buchanan is a strong advocate for Noongar people and has worked for years with First Nations families in Perth to help them advocate for housing and to generate political pressure for policy solutions to end homelessness. Dr Buchanan has described these deaths as 'Perth's own pandemic, claiming the lives of at least one of our people every week this winter'. She recently said: 'We are completely overwhelmed with families calling all day, from early in the morning. So many of these destitute families are calling for help burying their children, which costs thousands of dollars that we don't have. Others are demanding accommodation before they become the next death, desperately ill people discharged from ICUs and hospital straight back to the street. They are angry and embittered because there are so many deaths. People are terrified that they will be next. Their loved ones keep dying. This is a total crisis.'

How can we have a epidemic of deaths due to homelessness in a state with a $5 billion surplus? Housing in WA is systemically inadequate, to the point that the management represents chaotic breakdown at its best—chaotic management at the hands of the state. Last week, when I visited Carnarvon, I saw this firsthand. I went around and photographed 40 boarded-up homes. These houses were uninhabited and required full refurbishment. The population has declined from a peak of 8,000 people in 2016 to 4,000. It's now increased slightly, to 5,000 people in that town. But where's the government accountability?

The selection process to match people with housing is not being tailored to the needs of individuals and families. Research has found that First Nations applicants in WA wait longer on the priority public housing waitlist and are more likely to be evicted, especially under the state's punitive three-strikes eviction policy. If there's a breakdown between family and the department, it becomes a punitive response where people are evicted and families to longer have access to housing, and we all know that punitive approaches do not work.

Successive governments have underinvested in social housing. Homelessness in some instances is an outcome of the chaotic breakdown of social housing management. However, on the whole there is a system of unmet, unaddressed need, and we need to come up with a better prevention model for the social issues and systemic racism which, along with present, past, collective and intergenerational trauma, are often among the major and primary contributing factors. The social determinants of health are critical in addressing the housing and homelessness crisis. Issues with education, income support and mental health all play a role in compounding the issues that First Nations people experience.

There needs to be a comprehensive and forensic audit and strategic review of social housing policy, management and maintenance to match individual, family and social needs, not just in Western Australia but nationally. We also need to incorporate the design and implementation of place based, culturally guided social and emotional healing and wellbeing activities for individuals to enhance self, family and community function and to enhance their general way of being.

I have some serious concerns about the risk of overcrowding in our communities and the dangers that this poses, particularly in the outbreak of COVID. In Carnarvon in Western Australia, we are unable to actually quarantine, and we have all of those houses boarded up instead of being used as social housing. We have two places for ICU in the public hospital system. Where will these people go if we have an outbreak of COVID in a town like Carnarvon, which has 5,000 people?

The Greens have a strong plan to address the housing and homelessness crisis across this country. For decades, governments have rigged the private housing market with tax breaks that favour big developers and the rich property speculators. Our current housing system is worsening inequality. We have a plan to build one million homes, which would ensure that there are homes for all. These homes will be sustainable, accessible and affordable. Our new innovative shared equity ownership scheme will make it easier for people to own their first homes, where they want to live, for $300,000.