Throughout the world there are people who ’sleep rough’ every night. For a few, that is the way they choose to spend their lives; for the majority, however, the habit is not one of choice or desire — the choice is made for them due to circumstances relating to employment or their personal lives. While Australia is not immune to this social problem, generally those in Australia who are sleeping in the park, under the bridge or in their car do not suffer the climatic extremes as those who ‘sleep rough’ in other parts of the world.
Homelessness or living in cars and so on is not just a problem because it ‘makes the place look untidy’: it is an indicator of how society looks after its members who have usually hit the bottom — and are looking for some help to re-establish their lives — frequently as a result of circumstances the person had no control over. A network of organisations attempts to assist those who are homeless as well as those who through misfortune are likely to become homeless. Most of the organisations that provide this service in Australia are owned and operated by the non-government sector (some of these organisations do receive government support but nowhere near enough and most have suffered cuts since the Abbott government came to power). As you would expect there are organisations in other countries that perform similar activities — some of which use a counterintuitive process with great success thanks to government funding.
There are a number of practical issues when you are in a position where you don’t have a ‘usual’ address, a bed to sleep on at night and all that is represented by having a roof over your head. Probably the most important one is there is no certainty in your life — you literally don’t know where your next meal is coming from, if you will be safe if you do fall asleep, where you will find a place that is sheltered that evening and what tomorrow will bring. In addition, your family does not know where you are; services such as Centrelink require an address to ‘put you on the books’ and access to a computer to receive correspondence; and employers will react to you far more favourably if you take some care with your personal hygiene (a bit hard if you don’t have access to running water) as well as having conventional contact details. If you do manage to scrape together enough for the bond and rental for a property, the real estate agent, under the guise of looking after the interest of the property owner whom they represent, will generally require a reference from a previous landlord prior to renting you a property to live in — a bit hard if your previous address was the third park bench from the light pole.
Anglicare recently published its 2015 rental affordability snapshot as a continuation of the process it has followed for at least the
last four years. In 2015, the survey looked at 65,614 properties across Australia and measured where a tenant in the bottom 40% of household income distribution would spend greater than 30% of their disposable income to rent a place to live — the definition of ‘housing stress’. The results are frightening. From the 65,614 available properties:
- 3.4% of properties met the affordability requirements of a couple who relied on the age pension
- 0.9% (or 600 properties) met the affordability requirements for a single age pensioner
- 10 out of the 65,614 (that is not a typo) properties would be affordable for a single person on Newstart; and
- 8 (again not a typo) properties meet the affordability requirements for a single beneficiary of Youth Allowance.
It doesn’t get much better if you do have a job. Anglicare calculates that around 2.3% of the rental properties available at the time of the 2015 survey would be affordable if you are single and living on the mandated minimum wage; which is slightly over $33,000 per annum. Should you be a part of a young family comprising two adults on the minimum wage and receiving full child support and child care payments for your two children, still only somewhere around 24% of the properties surveyed would be suitable for you.
Clearly if you are in any of the situations above, you are probably reading this on a computer you don’t own — as discretionary expenditure such as internet connections, electricity supply, car and contents insurance, car repairs and, possibly at times, even food are all dispensed with so that you can retain that roof over your head. Again according to Anglicare, around 65,000 Australians do not have the financial security to ensure that they will have sufficient food each day.
The reality is that Australia is certainly not the worst place in the world to be homeless. Our climate in large population areas is rather benign in comparison to some parts of Europe, the USA and Canada, where some major population centres have similar climates to Mt Buller or Perisher. Despite never having been fortunate enough to travel to New York City or London, I am certainly aware of the stories of people that effectively live in subway stations and similar areas as they are (relatively) warm and sheltered — until they are ‘befriended’ by the relevant city’s transport police.
Like in Australia, various government and non-government organisations attempt to help the homeless across Europe, the US and Canada. Some do it better than others. In addition to trivialities such as food and shelter, in cold climates across the world people are also responsible for heating their homes; the purchase of warm clothes as well as additional food to stay warm. If there is a constant battle to find shelter, clearly other requirements for life take a back seat. As an example, a CBS Television Station in Minnesota (
WCCO) highlighted during April 2015 that their state government reported 43 people died during their winter where exposure to cold was either fully or partly responsible
for their death. While not all these people were homeless (one died trying to rescue another person from a lake), the link does look at the fate of some homeless people. Apparently this is an improvement on previous years.
Around 10 years ago in Utah, the Republican Governor was convinced to try a radical plan to reduce homelessness in the state — give them a home. The charmingly named
Desert News reports that it
saves money!
In one of the leading examples around the nation of counterintuitive thinking, Utah has been giving away apartments to the homeless. It is a program that has actually saved Utah money. For each homeless person, estimates for emergency medical bills alone are more than $16,000 a year on average. Giving them an apartment costs about $11,000. And it has drastically reduced the need for emergency medical visits.
Outside of medical, various other costs, including legal and justice system costs are estimated to add another $20,000 to $30,000 dollars a year (depending on the location). Utah’s housing, and support for the individuals once they are residing in a home, cuts those total costs by over half, all-in-all, from about $19,000 a year to under $8,000.
Utah wasn’t the originator of the idea. Again the
Desert News reports:
Designed by the Utah Department of Workforce Services, the program was modelled after the “Housing First” program pioneered in New York City more than 20 years ago. This approach involves putting housing ahead of all other concerns. When followed, alcohol consumption rates have been found to go down, along with drug usage and public nuisance behaviour. Each year some 10 percent leave the program and become fully independent, and only 6 percent are ejected from the program. The rest continue to work year by year with their caseworker.
The
Washington Post recently discussed the origins, benefits and economics of the program and celebrated its success in one of the USA’s most conservative states (Utah is the home of the Mormons). Other US states such as Florida and Wyoming also operate similar programs, so the experiment is repeatable.
If a person has a home, they are in a better position to access government services, a job application is easier (as personal hygiene is better and the potential employer has a contact point) and a person can make plans for the future. The Australian Government is in contrast withdrawing money from social service providers. Conservative states in the USA demonstrate that the current Australian Government’s policy is deeply flawed and doesn’t help anyone. At the same time, the Abbott government — to the detriment of our economy — supports processes such as negative gearing, novated leasing and capital gains.
In Joe Hockey’s world, the homeless are ‘leaners’ as they do not contribute to society. The reality is that those that are ‘sleeping rough’ in Australia are not taking much from society either. It’s a pity some of those that Hockey would define as ‘lifters’ are shifting profits offshore or structuring their affairs so that they make a tax loss (which are all still legal activities). The example to Australia from New York and Utah’s ‘homes for the homeless’ program would seem to suggest that if those who fall to the bottom of society are given some support rather than derision, they become overall contributors to society — at the same time as they are lifting themselves out of poverty, danger and risk. All it takes is someone to give them a chance.
What do you think?
As he did in ‘
The “trickle-down” effect’, 2353 presents us with an alternative approach that is already being shown to work. Why can’t governments see the benefit of spending money now for longer term benefits — and savings? Should Labor be picking up such approaches and showing the shortcomings in the current approach? Please let us know what you think.
Next week Ken returns with his view of the government's budget, including the way it began selling it before budget night: 'Government budget trickery'.
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