Facts on Homelessness in Brisbane
The only systematic counting of numbers of people who are homeless across all categories is done during the 2001 Census as they are able to accurately identify people staying with friends or family.
· The 2001 Census found a total of 5,094 homeless people in Brisbane with 180 sleeping rough in the city centre.
· In November 2003, the Homelessness Taskforce undertook a count of homeless people within 3km of Brisbane City Hall. This included people sleeping rough in parks and bus shelters, people in emergency accommodation and people sleeping in squats. The total count was 345 people with 74 people sleeping rough in Council parks and bus shelters. This count and the previous one held in 1999, found that approximately 25% of the homeless people identified were found sleeping on Council property.
· The Public Space Liaison Team within Brisbane City Council began in March 2006 to conduct quarterly audits of Green Spaces in a 4km radius of the city centre. This represents only a segment of the homeless population who are sleeping rough in parks and bus shelters but does not include people in emergency accommodation, people sleeping on private property, or people staying with friends or family (often referred to as “couch surfing”). The March 2006 audit found a total of 102 individuals sleeping in Council green space. The audit in June found a total of 158 individuals sleeping in Council green space and the audit undertaken in September 2006 found a total of 102 individuals sleeping in Council green space.
· The Brisbane Homelessness Service Centre funded through the State Government’s Response to Homelessness package had helped nearly 3,000 people in the nine months to August 2006.
· In the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s report on requests for emergency accommodation in 2003-2004 (latest available) found that daily in Queensland 110 valid requests for emergency accommodation were unmet largely due to the lack of available places.
· A range of studies and reports show that people with mental health or substance abuse issues have particular difficulty in maintaining housing. Homelessness is not simply the absence of a house and a range of other issues impact on the ability of a person to maintain housing including difficulty in managing other life issues such as illness, domestic violence, a history of abuse and other issues that impact on their ability to sustain a tenancy.
· Homelessness is often characterised as primary (sleeping rough), secondary (moving between temporary accommodation eg. Hostels and emergency accommodation) and tertiary (living in insecure or inappropriate accommodation eg. Boarding houses and caravan parks).
· People “sleeping rough” are concentrated in the city core but people staying with other households (40% in the 2001 census) are mainly in the suburbs. These people are often hard to identify and reach and are often not linked in to homelessness services.
· Anecdotally, the two new homelessness hubs report that while numbers of single people is reasonably steady, the numbers of homeless families requiring assistance is rapidly increasing and families are quite hard to place in transitional housing. This may be attributable to low rental vacancy rates and increasing rental costs.
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