About Homelessness in Australia

What Is Homelessness?

For the purposes of the Australian Census, homelessness is defined as:

• Primary homelessness, which includes all people without conventional accommodation, such as people living on the streets, sleeping in parks, squatting in derelict buildings, or using cars or railway carriages for temporary shelter.
• Secondary homelessness includes people who move frequently from one form of temporary shelter to another. On census night, it includes all people staying in emergency or transitional accommodation provided under the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP). Secondary homelessness also includes people residing temporarily with other households because they have no accommodation of their own and people staying in boarding houses on a short-term basis, operationally defined as 12 weeks or less.
• Tertiary homelessness refers to people who live in boarding houses on a medium to long-term basis, operationally defined as 13 weeks or longer. They are homeless because their accommodation situation is below the minimum community standard of a small self-contained flat.

This definition is now widely accepted within Australia and is used in the Australian Government's White Paper on Homelessness, released on December 21, 2008, and in developing the National Partnership Agreements on Homelessness.

How many homeless people are there in Australia?

On Census night in 2006, the homeless population in Australia was 105,000, according to an academic report released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Counting the Homeless, 2006 (which includes data from the 2006 Census and other sources) found that absolute homelessness, such as sleeping out or in an improvised shelter, accounted for 16% of homelessness in Australia.

Most homeless people were sheltered somewhere on Census night, with 45% staying temporarily with friends or relatives, 21% staying in boarding houses, and 19% staying in supported accommodation (such as hostels for the homeless, night shelters and refuges).

The majority of homeless people were single (57,182 people or 55%), while 20% were couples without accompanying children (20,704 people, or 10,160 couples with 384 accompanying adults) and 26% were in homeless families with children (26,790 people, or 7,483 families).

In 2006, more than two-thirds (67%) of the homeless population were adults over 18 years of age, with 12% under 12 years of age, and 21% from 12 to 18 years old. Less than half (44%) of homeless people were female.

There had been decreased in the number of homeless young people aged 12 - 18 years, from 22,600 in 2001 to 17,891 in 2006, a decrease of 21%. In 2006, there were 26,790 people in families, an increase of 17% on the 2001 figure.

There was also a 10% increase in the number of homeless adults outside of families. This was the largest group with about 60,000 people on Census night.

For more information about estimates of the total homeless population see Counting the Homeless 2006  available via the ABS webpage.

How is homelessness addressed in Australia?

There are many approaches to dealing with homelessness in Australia. Many of them are described on the Clearinghouse site. See Homelessness Initiatives.