There’s been a surge in Australians accessing homelessness services, and the existing infrastructure in place to help is struggling to cope with urgent emails unanswered and daily periods where front doors are closed and services can’t answer phones.
That’s according to a new report, Call Unanswered, by Impact Economics and Policy for Homelessness Australia, examining a two-week period from September 2024.
Services are under-resourced, overwhelmed and stressed, according to the report, which estimates there were between 2.7 million and 3.2 million Australians at risk of homelessness in 2022, where one negative shock could see them losing their home. That’s a 63 per cent increase from 2016 to 2022.
And that’s putting families, children and individuals without critical support, a serious risk for all such individuals but especially so for those fleeing family and domestic violence.
The survey found that services couldn’t answer phones for one in every 14 operating hours and had their doors closed for one in every 22 operating hours. Meanwhile, 666 urgent emails went unanswered across the two weeks. Eight-three per cent of services reported being unable to answer phone calls for some period during the survey, leaving people in crisis without immediate assistance.
The survey comes as around 270,000 seek assistance from specialist homelessness services every year in 2022-23, including 80,935 women and children who had experienced family and domestic violence.
The report found the surge in requests for help comes as rental vacancies are falling — with the national vacay rate at 1.2 per cent in September 2024 which is half the rate it was in January 2020 — as well as while rental stress is increasing, with rents across capital cities rising by 18.5 per cent
As Tania Farha, CEO of Safe and Equal noted: “The chronic shortage of crisis and long-term housing leaves victim survivors trapped in cycles of abuse, poverty, and instability. Demand for homelessness services has skyrocketed, yet the system is significantly under-resourced.
“Families with children were turned away on one in five of the days surveyed, and individuals without dependents face even greater barriers, being turned away on one in two of the days surveyed.”
She added that without safe and affordable housing options, too many victim survivors of family violence face the impossible choice or staying with an abuser, or facing homelessness.
“Specialist family violence services work directly with victim survivors to help them escape and keep them safe while they recover,” said Farha.
Safe and Equal says it welcomes the new five-year National Agreement allocating $400 million annually to homelessness services but declared that additional federal investment is needed to address the issue and meet unmet service demand.
Along with Homelessness Australia, it’s calling for immediate government action to address the link between homelessness and family violence, with key recommendations including increasing social housing and support payments, strengthening early intervention programs and preventing homelessness.
See the full report here.