August 09, 2024 | Katie Wand
According to recent census data, almost 31,000 Victorians are without a home. And for many clients of Community Legal Centres, all roads lead back to a lack of suitable housing.
Everyone has a right to a home. A home is a basic human need and is fundamental to wellbeing. It is extremely difficult to live a good life without a safe and secure place to live and use as a base from which to work, raise a family and get an education.
We all need a place to call home, but it is becoming harder and harder for people to secure and maintain appropriate and stable housing. Each year, rents rise higher and higher, creating housing stress for more and more families. This, together with family violence, unfair evictions and short-term leases means that an increasing number of Victorians are finding themselves without a place to live.
Drivers of homelessness
People who experience homelessness often face disadvantage, discrimination and problems with the law. We know that homelessness can be caused by legal problems, and that legal problems can be caused by homelessness. Every day, Community Legal Centres and social services work with people who have been criminalised as a result of having no option but to live in public spaces.
We know that people experiencing family violence and crisis situations need support to recover and address their complex and interconnected life issues. In many cases, a person will need help with a range of problems including social security, debt, family violence and housing. Housing is the very foundation of social support and is critical to ensuring that the work done by legal, financial, government and social services actually helps someone to get their life back on track and avoid escalating legal problems.
The Victorian Government has an important opportunity to lead on this issue and also break the link between housing insecurity and prison. Providing people with a safe and stable home is both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. By investing in preventative programs and policy reform, we can stop people from entering an often intergenerational cycle of poverty and homelessness.
Not enough beds
The findings from the inquiry into homelessness in 2021 remain unchanged: Victoria’s housing and homelessness sector is struggling to cope with demand and there is not enough available short-, medium- or long-term accommodation available in Victoria to support the number of people at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness.
The number of people who had gone to a homelessness service but failed to get a bed rose from 4,700 in 2021-2022 to 5,700 in 2023-24. And in 2023, 57,500 people asked for help with accommodation but were not able to get it.
Problematic wait times for housing
Data from the latest Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) annual report shows an almost 50 per cent increase since 2020 (from 12.4 months to 18.1 months) in the average waiting time for public rental housing for those people who have received a priority access housing allocation. And for those receiving priority access due to family violence, the wait times have more than doubled to 23.6 months.
Worsening housing crisis
Australia's housing system has not been able to build enough new housing stock to keep up with the needs of its population. When coupled with changes in peoples' housing preferences, this has resulted in worsening affordability for renters and first-home buyers.
Given the lag in housing supply responding to those changes, it has contributed to rising house prices and worsening affordability. This has led to the number of working Victorians seeking support from homelessness services growing by 14 per cent between 2021 and 2023.
Child homelessness crisis
In 2022-2023, in Victoria, over 22,000 children (alone and as part of a family) presented to homelessness services. And in that same time period, the number of children still homeless after contact with homelessness services grew overall by 3.2 per cent. According to Homelessness Australia in its recent report, “the extent of homelessness for children in Australia represents a shocking failure of public policy”.
Climate justice
Climate change destroys homes. It also places those without shelter in danger from extreme heat, floods and storms. Those who are the poorest will be most affected by, and will have least insulation from, climate change, therefore adaptation to climate change has to be a government and national mission, not a matter that can be delegated to those at the lowest level of the material hierarchy with the least adaptive agency.
Key changes needed to address homelessness in Victoria:
- Expand public and community housing by at least 60,000 homes by 2032.
- Implement measures to ensure Victorians are safe and secure in social housing and the private rental market through legal and other supports to enforce their rights.
- Put wraparound supports in place for people at risk of becoming homeless. Victim survivors fleeing violence, people dealing with mental health issues, and those on low incomes should be supported to prevent the cycle of homelessness from starting. This involves investing in the community legal sector to assist people with legal problems who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
- Change laws, policy and systems that criminalise people who don’t have a home to go to. People experiencing homelessness need support, not punishment. Prison, fines and outdated policies and laws are not the answer.
- Ensure the right to adequate housing is upheld so every Victorian is protected from being harmed by climate change.
