Page 4392 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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is at times what the Domestic Violence Crisis Service has to resort to in order to provide safe accommodation to those leaving violence.
This motion calls for more than an evaluation of the current Common Ground or any single model. It calls for economic analysis of providing accommodation whether support is required or not for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, as opposed to doing nothing that directly responds to their need for affordable and long-term housing.
The Canadians are among the first to develop housing-first models and have done significant work on the cost analysis of homelessness. Their research explores the cost of housing someone in jail, hospitals or the shelter system and compares this to housing them in social or supportive housing. The difference is quite illuminating. For example, they found that in 2013 homelessness cost the Canadian economy just over $7 billion annually. This includes the provision of emergency shelters and community supports but also accounts for the increased costs of emergency services, including fire, police and ambulance, health care, the criminal justice system and others.
The analysis found that the average monthly cost of housing someone while homeless was $1,932 for a shelter bed, $4,333 for incarceration, $10,900 for a hospital bed, $701 to provide rental supplement and $200 for social housing. This cost analysis did not look at the social and human costs, but it found that not only is putting someone in housing cheaper; it is also much more humane. The longer someone remains homeless, the greater likelihood that their physical and mental health will deteriorate and there is an increased chance of an early death.
Provision of housing first is an essential component of any strategy to successfully end homelessness. There is no better evidenced or developed service model, and the outcomes recorded for people who have experienced homelessness exceed any comparable approaches. It is a rights-based intervention that, when delivered at scale, also has the potential to reframe our understanding and approaches to homelessness itself, seeing that everyone is ready and entitled to a stable home in the first instance.
Locally, the 2016 census tells us that 1,596 Canberrans were experiencing homelessness and that Canberra is leading the country in decreasing homelessness, despite a growing population. However, the ACT recorded the biggest percentage rise in rough sleepers, with a 74.2 per cent increase. There was a 73 per cent increase in the number of people in overcrowded dwellings in the ACT and New South Wales between 2011 and 2016. One in 102 people in the ACT received homelessness assistance and the top three causes of homelessness in Canberra are housing crisis, relationship or family breakdown and financial difficulties.
As of March 2019 the average wait time for placement in accommodation through OneLink was 30.3 days, which shows that demand for accommodation is exceeding supply. I note that most of those waiting for accommodation will be provided with referrals or access to supports. However, without accommodation, I am sure we can all appreciate, it is difficult to get your life back on track, regardless of what led you into homelessness.
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