This research area documents and explores the changing geography of homelessness across Australia and seeks to understand how these changes are connected to broader economic, social and spatial changes such as private rental markets, unemployment, demographics and the availability of homelessness services.
Understanding how these broader ‘structural’ forces impact upon and shape homelessness can help to identify opportunities for governments to address and reduce homelessness.
Homelessness has increased greatly in Australian capital cities since 2001. Almost two-thirds of people experiencing homelessness are in these cities, with much of the growth associated with severely crowded dwellings and rough sleeping.
What role do structural factors such housing markets, labour markets, specialist homeless services and the demographic profiles of areas play in shaping the rate and distribution of homelessness across Australia? This second and final report builds on earlier analysis of the spatial dynamics of homelessness from 2001 to 2011. This research was funded by AHURI and was a collaboration between researchers at RMIT and Hanover Welfare Services.
This is the first of two reports focusing on the structural factors underlying homelessness in Australia. This first stage details the analysis undertaken with large secondary data sources to examine the spatial distribution of homelessness, its concentration and how this has changed between 2001 to 2011. This research was funded by AHURI and was a collaboration between researchers at RMIT and Hanover Welfare Services.
The specialist homelessness sector and state and federal governments have argued that tight housing markets are one of the key structural factors driving homelessness. Specifically it is argued that limited availability of low cost rental stock both causes homelessness and prevents its resolution.
