Media Release: Concern at numbers of homeless people turned away

Mission Australia - one of the largest providers of homeless services in the country – has expressed its concern at new figures which show close to 60% of people who need help from government-funded homeless shelters are turned away each day.

The data, released this morning by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, show that of people needing new and immediate accommodation every day in 2009-10, 58% were unable to be placed.

The AIHW’s report also states the group most likely to be turned away were families with an average of 82% of couples with children, 69% of couples without children and 67% of individuals with children who requested new and immediate accommodation turned away each day, compared with 45% of individuals without children – similar results to those in 2008-09.

Mission Australia’s Chief Executive, Toby Hall, said the knowledge that the majority were family groups – who would have ended up sleeping rough, in cars, or in other dangerous situations – fitted with Mission Australia’s experience and was cause for significant alarm.

“These numbers – and the tragic individual stories behind them – are shameful. Any level of homelessness in Australia is unacceptable,” said Mr Hall.

“For our society not have the capacity to meet the demand of homeless families is an indictment on our values and priorities.

“These latest results match up pretty closely with Mission Australia’s own experiences. Our data suggests that single women with children and families are likely to have the most difficulty in accessing accommodation due to a lack of capacity.

“Anecdotally, many services in outer metro and regional areas are reporting escalating demand that they are unable to meet. What then follows is a ‘drift’ into the inner city which causes both a loss of personal and community networks for the individual and a severe bottleneck in terms of demand for services and access to housing in those areas.

“We also need to recognise that these figures only tell part of the story. For every person fronting up at one of these government-funded services for help there’d be hundreds of others who chose not to – the 'hidden homeless'. I’m thinking of young people couch-surfing temporarily with friends or extended family. Those people don’t get counted in this research.

“And let’s not forget that 30% of people turned away were Aboriginal, despite making up just 2% of the population.

“Both federal and state/territory governments have made a significant investment in tackling homelessness over the past few years – measures that are aimed not only at addressing accommodation capacity but also to cut the flow of people into homelessness and to try and get them on their feet more quickly once they’re there.

“Figures released last week show that funding starting to have an impact with the total number of people supported by government-funded homeless services rising by seven per cent in 2009-10 to 219,900.

“But with the turn away rates remaining at last year’s levels it’s obvious we haven’t succeeded in ‘turning the tap off’ in terms of people entering into homelessness.

“What these figures show us is that Australia’s homeless problem won’t be fixed overnight. It’s a reminder that we need to work harder, better and more effectively if we’re going to get on top of the problem,” said Mr Hall.

Media contact: Paul Andrews (02) 9219 2080 or 0409 665 495