Outreach team needed in homeless ‘hotspot’: QCOSS
Queensland Council of Social Services [QCOSS] estimated around 1400 homeless people live in Cairns and identified the region as a “hotspot” in 2011. But the Homeless Health Outreach Team was dumped last week as part of a major restructure to the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital Health Serivce [CHHHS]. CHHHS’s Chair Bob Norman says the team [...]
public housing wait taking its toll
DOZENS of Victorians are dying each year while waiting for public housing. More than 380 people who died before getting a home have been scrubbed off state government waiting lists in the past five years. Extreme cases include a dead applicant removed from the list at age 87 after being on it for 17 years, [...]
Disabled at greater risk of sleeping rough
by PATRICIA KARVELAS From:The Australian PEOPLE with a disability are at greater risk of homelessness than the general population, particularly those with a mental illness. A new report by researchers at the University of Adelaide, to be released today, found people with a disability need extra, targeted support to maintain stable housing, and those who have [...]
Broome homelessness ‘at crisis point’
HOMELESSNESS in the West Australian resort town of Broome is at crisis point, as unprecedented numbers of people from across the Kimberley drift to the coastal town and either cannot get home or decide to stay. More than 1400 homeless and at-risk adults and children are on the books of Broome’s outreach centre, which was [...]
The great Australian nightmare
Travis Gilbert If Australia is to meet the worthy goal of halving overall homelessness by 2020, we need to leverage the maximum political will and investment from the not-for-profit, public and private sectors. Today marks the fourth anniversary of the release of the first-ever Australian Government White Paper on homelessness, The Road Home. Former prime [...]
Landmark homelessness report from Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
MORE than 230,000 Australians used a homeless service in 2011-12 and 99,000 were children or people aged up to 24. The first ever report on specialist homeless services by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to be released today shows more than seven million nights of accommodation were provided to the homeless last financial [...]
Costly investments in long term homeless people show results
ELEANOR HALL: A three year pilot program has found homeless people who were given consistent intensive support across a range of services experience significant improvements in their lives. Those in the program fared much better than those in a control group who were given only access to existing homeless services. Rachel Carbonell reports. RACHEL CARBONELL: [...]
Homeless bill up to $5.5m per person
THE chronically homeless are costing taxpayers a “staggering” $900,000 to $5.5 million per person in economic costs, a ground-breaking study has revealed. The Lifecourse Institutional Costs of Homelessness for Vulnerable Groups study, led by professor Eileen Baldry and researchers from the University of NSW, followed the lives of 11 people and found that between them [...]
Homelessness costs taxpayers ‘millions’
HOMELESS people are costing taxpayers a “staggering” amount of money that could be reduced with early intervention, according to new figures. A study by the University of New South Wales tracked the costs associated with 11 homeless people who had accessed federal and state government services during their lives. Between them, they had cost nearly [...]
First bloke looks to help homeless men after New York visit
First bloke Tim Mathieson. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Sunday Telegraph HE started with sheds for men and their problems, now Tim Mathieson is on a mission to save those without homes. The First Bloke was struck with a simple thought when he visited the oldest men’s refuge in downtown New York yesterday. Why didn’t [...]
