Dying with Their Rights On: The myths and realities of ending homelessness in Australia Dr Carlos d’Abrera Research Report | December 2018 Dying with Their Rights On: The myths and realities of ending homelessness in Australia Dr Carlos d’Abrera Research Report 38 Related CIS publication Research Report RR34 Jessica Borbasi, Life Before Death: Improving Palliative Care for Older Australians (2017) Related external publication Jeremy Sammut, The Madness of Australian Child Protection (Connor Court 2015) Contents Executive Summary ...............................................................................................1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................3 A growing problem or a misplaced definition? ............................................................4 Box 1: ABS Homeless operations groups ...........................................................5 Rise in official homelessness is due to population growth. ...........................................7 Inflated official statistics obscure the small subset of those most in need ......................8 The ‘right’ to sleep rough ...................................................................................... 10 The orthodox account of the causes of homelessness ............................................... 11 Box 2: Housing First ..................................................................................... 12 Flaws in existing structural solutions ...................................................................... 14 Social housing is oversubscribed and inefficiently used ...................................... 14 A welfare trap ............................................................................................. 15 Mutual obligation and anti-social behaviour ..................................................... 15 Individual factors are an important cause of homelessness ........................................ 17 Deinstitutionalisation .................................................................................... 17 Mental illness and substance abuse ................................................................ 18 The cost of tobacco disproportionately disadvantages the homeless .................... 19 Policy recommendations ....................................................................................... 20 Improve the quality and efficient use of social housing to turn off the tap ............ 20 Improve substance misuse and mental health treatment and outcomes ............... 20 Adopt benign and enlightened paternalism ...................................................... 21 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 22 Endnotes ............................................................................................................ 23 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to Jeremy Sammut, Simon Cowan, Gary Johns and to three anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this report. All errors are the author’s responsibility. Executive Summary Despite the average Australian equating homelessness academics, charities and NGOS that undertake research, with sleeping on the streets, only 7% of the people conduct advocacy, and lobby government for more officially classified as homeless in Australia are rough taxpayer-funded spending on the alleged problems and sleepers. Though the numbers of people sleeping rough solutions — for the numbers of homeless to be artificially increased by approximately 2000 people nationally high. between 2011 and 2016, their proportion of the total The orthodox understanding of the causes of homeless population has remained the same over homelessness promoted by the industry overemphasises this period. This is despite government spending on the role of economic and social structures (structuralism). homelessness exceeding $817.4 million in 2016-17, an Solutions based on structuralist explanations — such as increase of 29% from $634.2 million in 2012-13. increasing the supply of affordable social housing — are Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data indicate that insufficient to reduce rough sleeping. Such approaches the total number of homeless people has grown from minimise the role of, and fail to address, the individual 89,728 in 2006 to 116,427 in 2016 — an increase characteristics, choices, and behaviours; especially the of 30% over the decade. These inflated figures are high rates of mental illness and drug abuse that afflict based on a questionable definition that includes people rough sleepers. such as those living in overcrowded accommodation. Current public housing policy contributes to the Overcrowding has increased most in the cities where problem. By encouraging unemployment and poverty rates of net overseas migration have been the highest. through a number of perverse incentives, social housing For some groups, such as recent migrants, living in maintains people on the margins of homelessness. crowded dwellings is a rational economic decision, while Tenancy breakdowns are often related to the antisocial for others it may reflect cultural preferences for shared behaviours and criminal activities associated with drug living spaces. use (especially methamphetamines). While tenancy support provides an opportunity for vulnerable individuals By including the ‘housed homeless’ (such as those living with complex needs to maintain housing, there is too in supported accommodation) and people who would much scope for such people to refuse support and to never consider themselves to be homeless, the current potentially face eviction. official definition distorts resource allocation and dilutes out those most in need; chronic rough sleepers. It is Homelessness services have proved unable to in the interest of the ‘homelessness industry’ — the reduce the numbers of rough sleepers because of an Dying with Their Rights On: The myths and realities of ending homelessness in Australia | 1 unwillingness to implement the benign and enlightened • Appointing public guardians to help make paternalism necessary to help the most vulnerable exit decisions on behalf of rough sleepers who lack the streets. ‘Housing First’ initiatives — which seek to decision-making capacity. provide unconditional access to housing, independent of • Expanding mandatory drug treatment for treatment options and requirements — are successful individuals who are homeless or at high risk in exiting some rough sleepers from the streets but of homelessness, to improve the chances of do little to address the mental illness and drug abuse maintaining stable accommodation. factors leading to homelessness. • Requiring occupants of public housing referred To effectively reduce genuine homelessness and the to mental health services to accept mandatory wide range of health, social, and physical risks and psychosocial support as a condition of ongoing harms that cause, and are caused by, rough sleeping, tenancy (consistent with the principle of mutual this research report therefore recommends: obligation). • Underpinning assertive outreach programs for • Re-establishing long term institutional care rough sleepers with a non-opt-out triage process facilities for the proportion of chronically to reduce non-participation and ensure those homeless people, particularly those with mental who suffer mental illness are referred to mental illness and complex needs, who would benefit health services and treated assertively. from high levels of support. 2 | Dying with Their Rights On: The myths and realities of ending homelessness in Australia Introduction In 2017, the ‘tent city’ episode in Sydney’s Martin Place has grown from 89,728 to 116,427 - a 30% increase.5* reignited the debate about ‘what should be done’ about The rate of homelessness was 45.2 people per 10,000 in homelessness. The NSW government argued that the 2006 and currently sits at 50 people per every 10,000.6 makeshift encampment posed an unacceptable impost This places Australia as one of the worst performers in on the public, while the city council — with the backing the OECD7. The lifetime aggregate cost of homelessness of assorted NGO’s and academics — framed the issue is estimated to range from $900,000 to $5.5 million per in terms of homeless rights.1 Was this public display homeless person.8 of rough sleeping a lifestyle choice, or an example of If you were to ask the average Australian what they government inaction failing the most vulnerable in understand by the term ‘homeless’, the most common society? answer would be ‘a person who sleeps rough, and usually The cost of homelessness to the taxpayer continues to on the streets’.9 Despite this common perception, only grow. Total state and territory recurrent expenditure on 8200** of the 116,427 (7%) homeless people counted homelessness increased from $634.2 million in 2012- nationally on census night 2016 met this definition of 13 to $817.4 million in 2016-17.2 Combined federal and homeless. This percentage is unchanged from 2011.10 state annual expenditure on housing and homelessness There is clearly a mismatch between public understanding is about $10 billion per annum.3 of homelessness and the official account of the problem. Given these massive sums, it seems strange that the This paper will explore some of the reasons behind homelessness rate has increased sharply since the this incongruence and will examine two decades of release of the Rudd Government’s