About 260 people were turned away from daily homelessness in 2019-20, usually because there was no place to live, a new report said.
And during the Covid-19 crisis, about 6,000 people a month are forced to seek or receive homelessness services because of the pandemic.
Latest AIHW’s Report
A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), released on Friday, explored and analysed the need for homeless people from 12 months till June.
It found that 290,500 clients had sought help from the homelessness organization, up from 279,200 in 2015-16, but were stable compared to the 2018-19 financial year.
The report said 114,000 of those people were homeless when they sought help, and 152 300 were at risk of homelessness.
Throughout the 2019-20 year year, there were 95,300 homeless subsidy applications, amounting to 260 per day, and 3,000 more than in the previous financial year.
Of those applications, 60% were for people seeking temporary or emergency accommodation, and assistance calls were denied because there was no accommodation at the time, the report said.
Areas Facing Increasing Difficulty
People are more likely to turn their backs on help in Victoria, followed by Western Australia and Tasmania.
Jenny Smith, chairwoman of Homelessness Australia, said the data showed that more than two-thirds of those who turned to jobs were women or girls.
“This includes many women who are offering homeless services to young children,” she said.
“There were 11201 children under the age of 10 who lost support this year.
“The number of people helping the homeless needs to change and continue to grow every year. Clearly, there is a growing gap between the need for support and the resources available to the homeless. “
In March and April, the epidemic sparked an action by national and local governments that feared sleep deprivation could jeopardize the health response.
Governments raise money and provide hotel rooms for those who have difficulty sleeping, while the provincial government doubles certain social benefits from April to September.
The Crisis
The AIHW report covers only the first three months of the pandemic, but in New South Wales for example, 3,000 sleepless people were provided with temporary shelter during the crisis, while 2,600 homeless people were provided with housing in Victoria.
The same could be said of the 300 people who slept on empty shelters in Queensland.
Separate monthly data compiled by AIHW reveals that there were 6,144 homeless customers who identified Covid-19 as their reason for seeking help in September.
Of those, 4 418 were in Victoria, compared to 806 in Queensland and 586 in NSW.
In Victoria, in particular, “the need for emergency accommodation” has risen sharply since March 2020 “, the report said.
Smith said while provinces had increased funding during the epidemic, the provincial government had refused to provide more support to the services of the homeless.
Critics also claim that in some cases, and especially in the aftermath of the epidemic, some sleepless nights may have been left behind by the country’s governments to be depressed on the streets, or paid to stay in hotel locker rooms.
Who Needs Help?
The report, an annual summary that has been around since 2011, provides insight into who is looking for Australian homeless resources.
It found that 60% or approximately 174,700 clients were women in 2019-20, while 29% or approximately 85,000 were under 18 years of age.
There were 24,400 people aged 55 or over seeking homeless help, a fast-growing group, the report said.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were over-represented in the statistics, making up about 3% of Australian people but more than a quarter of all homeless consumers (27% or about 71,600).
Smith, based in Victoria, said demand in his province among Indigenous customers was more than doubling.
In general, the highest demand was in Western Australia, which included Broome, Exmouth, Geraldton, Kununurra and Port Hedland, with 583.1 out of 10,000 clients.
In the Northern Territory, outside Darwin, there were 575.9 clients per 10,000 people.
Gabrielle Phillips, AIHW spokeswoman, said people living with mental health problems were also one of the “fastest growing client groups”.
The number had increased by 22% from 2015-16 and accounted for about a third of all clients in 2019-20.
Phillips said factors involving reduced discrimination were likely to increase awareness among people seeking help.
The report also found that 38% – about 91,700 clients – were introduced to a homeless organization in the face of domestic and domestic violence, while 12% reported drug and alcohol abuse as a problem.
Other notable cohorts include 6,400 NDIS participants seeking assistance in 2019-20, with 1,400 customers describing themselves as heroes of the defense force.
Guardian Australia reported this month that some people in Victoria who had been offered hotel accommodation during the epidemic were leaving the program.
