DOCUMENT LIBRARY

One in five Australians now live in a household that comprises two or more generations of related adults. This Essay argues that if the upward trend observed over the last 25 years continues, this will have implications for policy-makers and other stakeholders in relation to a range of policy concerns including urban planning and aged care service provision.

Link to document: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/p70688

The North & West Metropolitan homelessness service system (HSS) is made up of over 200 programs that are funded to provide assistance to people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness.

Five of these services are funded through the Transitional Housing Management (THM), to provide; Initial assessment & planning; Transitional Housing; Housing Establishment Funds (HEF); and Special Housing Needs Assessment.

The remaining programs are funded as Specialist Homelessness Services to provide case managed support to assist people to move from crisis to stable, long term housing. These include: women’s refuges, youth refuges, other crisis accommodation services and case managed support provided on an outreach basis to people in other forms of accommodation or ‘living rough’.

Crisis accommodation workers are often the first point of contact or “first aid” for mothers and their infants seeking refuge from family violence. While shelters provide the physical safety, workers within them have an opportunity to provide the much needed emotional safety for these infants and their mothers, beginning with acknowledging that infants are affected by family violence.

This educational resource for refuge/crisis accommodation workers consists of a comprehensive workbook and DVD. The package promotes working with infants who have been traumatized by their experience of family violence, while strengthening attachment relationships between the mothers and babies who seek refuge accommodation. This informative resource will change the way workers “see” babies and infants within their services and will have a lasting impact on the incredibly important work that they do. The project is funded by the Australian Government.

The Women’s Leadership Alliance combines leadership development workshops with peer networking to create a forum for professional development and support.

The program comprises 4 half day workshops over 8 weeks covering the following areas:

• Self awareness (what is my natural leadership style?) 
• Environmental awareness (How do I interact within my work environment?)
• Creating balance (What truly matters to me?) 
• The leadership path (Navigating my leadership journey)

The Department has released the Stage 2 report produced by Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute. It is based on consultations with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness and with service providers on quality service provisions.

Link to document: http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/housing/progserv/homelessness/national_quality_framework/Pages/nqf_stage2.aspx

The Street Health Mobile Medical Unit operates from the corner of Swanston St and Flinders Lane. Easily recognisable, it is parked on the footpath next to St. Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday and Friday nights between 7pm-10pm each week.

People experiencing / at risk of homelessness or experiencing other forms of disadvantage can turn up to the van without an appointment. The van has a doctor (non-pharmacotherapy prescribing) and a mental health nurse available at all sessions. Every second Friday, a DGCHS Health Time support worker also attends to facilitate referral pathways into other welfare services.

Read about FRMP’s achievements for the last six months which include delivering 6 professional development workshops, data on FRMP brokerage and the role out of the Respite Care Pilot program.

Link to document: http://www.frmp.org.au/media/FRMP-Six-Month-Report-July-December-20111.pdf

Read about FRMP’s achievements for the last six months which include delivering 6 professional development workshops, data on FRMP brokerage and the role out of the Respite Care Pilot program.

Link to document: http://www.frmp.org.au/media/FRMP-Six-Month-Report-July-December-20111.pdf

The Rental Report provides key statistics on the private rental market in Victoria. The major source for the statistics presented in the Rental Report is the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority which collects data on all rental bonds lodged under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (VIC). The report provides the September quarter overview; current rents; rental availability; and rental market affordability.

A research briefing on mortality amongst homeless people which draws on and sets out the interim findings of a study investigating homeless mortality in England.

Key points:

• The average age of death of a homeless person is 47 years old and even lower for homeless women at just 43, compared to 77 for the general
  population.
• Drug and alcohol abuse are particularly common causes of death amongst the homeless population, accounting for just over a third of all deaths.
• Homeless people are over 9 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population
• Deaths as a result of traffic accidents are 3 times as likely, infections twice as likely and falls over 3 times as likely.
• Being homeless is incredibly difficult both physically and mentally and has
  significant impacts on people’s health and well being. Ultimately, homelessness kills.

The Australian Childhood Foundation has developed a free resource guide for responding to the needs of traumatised children in the school environment. Making Space for Learning uses the knowledge base about the neurobiology of trauma and relationship disruption to help unlock traumatised children and young people's potential to grow and develop at school. It has a range of very clear and simple-to-adapt strategies for supporting individual students and resourcing class rooms and schools.

Link to document: http://www.childhood.org.au/Assets/Files/bdb91340-c96b-457d-a408-ce4d790e3c00.pdf

The Heart Felt collection is a unique window into how the trauma of abuse affects and shapes the lives of children. Children's drawings reflect childhood as they experience it. Children draw pictures of people, events in their lives and ideas that hold some significance for them. Children's drawings give adults a glimpse into their world and how they experience the people in it. They provide the opportunity to understand the meaning that children attach to events and people in their lives. It is wonderful and powerful resource to use in training and community awareness initiatives.

Link to document: http://www.childhood.org.au/Assets/Files/b6de0af2-e764-42e8-9608-ce7b6ccd1c86.pdf

This report presents data on the people turned away from government-funded specialist homelessness accommodation in 2010-11. It is the final report to be sourced from the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) National Data Collection (NDC). From 1 July 2011, data will be reported from the new Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) collection. The data collected indicate that government-funded specialist homelessness agencies are operating to capacity and are unable to completely meet the demand for accommodation. Some groups, such as families, experience more difficulty than others in obtaining accommodation.

Link to document: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=10737420783&tab=2

This project sought to understand how housing assistance affects social inclusion for persons with a disability and involved 98 face-to-face interviews with persons with a disability in NSW, SA and Vic; focus groups with service providers; and interviews with social housing providers.

The research found that housing assistance has a very substantial impact on the social inclusion of persons with a disability in Australia. Housing assistance:

• Provides stability in the lives of persons living with a disability who would otherwise be vulnerable to a range of negative circumstances and who may otherwise have no sense of control over their lives.
• Improves resilience and independence by helping people with a disability deal with crises in their lives in relation to health, family relationships, monetary concerns etc.
• Reduces exposure to very high housing costs and the risk of eviction–thereby reducing vulnerability to homelessness.
• Improves employability in paid employment which has social inclusion benefits both for the individual and broader society.
• Provides opportunities for being heard so that people with disabilities find a voice within their community, which in turn enables engagement with wider social institutions.

Link to document: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/p40585

This report presents the 2010-11 data on the use of government-funded specialist homelessness services. It is the final annual report to be sourced from the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) National Data Collection (NDC). From 1 July 2011, data on the people using specialist homelessness services will be reported from the new Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) collection. In 2010-11, an estimated 230,500 people (equivalent to 1 in 97 Australians) used specialist homelessness services. Young people, families and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continued to be significant users of services. The most common reasons why people sought support were interpersonal relationship issues (such as domestic or family violence); accommodation-related issues (such as being evicted); and financial issues (such as having insufficient money to pay for accommodation, food, bills or other essentials.

Link to document: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=10737420853&tab=2

This research synthesis provides a rigorous analysis of the key elements of effective youth mentoring programs. The report considers national and international evidence on the value for investment and identifies evidence regarding the social and economic benefits for youth of quality one-to-one relationship based mentoring. The report was commissioned by the Victorian Youth Mentoring Alliance, the Office for Youth and the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust, and prepared by AHURI's Research Synthesis Service.

Link to document: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/psyn074

AHURI Positioning Paper: No. 142 Understanding the patterns, characteristics and trends in the housing sector labour force in Australia aims to better understand the housing sector labour market and will answer the question: What are the principle constraints faced by the housing sector labour force in meeting the challenge of increasing housing supply? This research focuses on the supply of housing and in particular on the contribution that workers in the residential housing sector make to the supply of housing.

Link to document: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/p30634

AHURI Final Report: No. 177, At home and in place? The role of housing in social inclusion, explored ways in which housing processes can affect social disadvantage and social inclusion. Drawing on case studies in Australia and the UK, it considered the extent to which housing and related policies and programs can be effective in promoting inclusion and reducing disadvantage.

Link to document: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/p50566

Community Information Victoria (CIVic) is the peak body for the community information and support sector. Member agencies are increasingly concerned about negative impacts on individual and family well being as a result of the pressures associated with the rising costs of housing. We conducted a snapshot survey of housing assistance provided by our members in the course of ER service delivery. The findings that form the basis for this snapshot came from responses of 18 CIVic member agencies that participated in an electronic survey conducted by CIVic in May 2011. Agencies’ response to the increasing demand for their services involve greater collaboration with other service providers and flexible application of ER funds to ensure that vulnerable individuals and families at risk of homelessness are provided with some measure of reprieve in the short term. The longer term impact of the cost of housing on vulnerable groups and the agencies that service them will require a shift in public and policy thinking about the housing crisis in Victoria.

This study was designed to explore the viability of an alternative method of measuring affordability (the residual income method) to that of the ubiquitous 30 per cent benchmark method and to use this alternative method for enriching understanding around a range of affordability and housing market issues. The work has been exploratory but it does reveal both the potential and the limitations of the method. This Final Report was preceded by a Positioning Paper (Stone et al. 2011) which reviews the national and international literature on measuring housing affordability and outlines the methodology and assumptions behind the residual income method.

Link to document: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/projects/p50597

Based at Women's Health West, this program delivers an integrated response for people experiencing family violence with the aim of providing early intervention to assist women and children to stay safe in their home. Project partners include police, family violence services and other support services and the program includes access to brokerage to assist in making the property safer e.g. lock changes, security lights and doors etc. Also having access to interim accommodation ensures that women and children are safe at the time of the highest risk. 

Based at Berry Street Victoria, this demonstration project aims to strengthen risk management practice for women & children who are most vulnerable to continuing and potentially lethal family violence. It also aims to deliver an effective, multi agency risk assessment and case management approach to improve safety for women and children in the City of Hume and increase accountability of men who use violence.

The Mercy Care Program acquired funds from FaCHSIA to run ‘Mercy Kids’ Project. The project has two components; to build on the partnership with the Royal Childrens' Hospital (RCH) to enhance the services awareness and responses to children experiencing Family Violence; as well as develop 80 ‘Prac Packs’ to provide resources for young people experiencing Family Violence.

Workshop feedback from participants responding to the following questions:
1. What were the most interesting aspects about the programs you have heard about today?
2. How do you think these programs might impact on your daily work with families?
3. What are your recommendations for good collaborative practice in the context of family violence? When it works well what are the elements?
4. Given there is so much going on in both the family violence and homelessness sector, how do you keep up to date with what's happening?
5. Are there areas or issues that you would like to further explore / know more about?

The new Victorian Homelessness Action Plan 2011 - 2015 was released on 5 October 2011. In summary, the Victorian Homelessness Action Plan 2011‑2015 is focused on:

• supporting innovative approaches to homelessness
• investigating models that focus specifically on early intervention and prevention
• better targeting of resources when and where they are most needed and where they will make the biggest difference.

The majority of National Social Housing Survey respondents were either `satisfied' or `very satisfied' with living in either public housing or community housing. In addition, most respondents indicated that the amenity and location of their housing met the needs of their household. These respondents also recorded experiencing `benefits' from living in social housing–around 90% felt more settled and over two-thirds felt they enjoyed better health. These findings are particularly noteworthy given that social housing is typically targeted at groups such as low income earners, those who were previously homeless and people who are otherwise disadvantaged in the housing market.

This paper details the key issues with performance management, giving guidance to community housing managers and directors on best practice. It outlines difficulties with performance measurement techniques when applied to not-for-profit organisations, and shows some of the ways the data can be used by both housing providers and external stakeholders.

Link to document: http://www.kineticis.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/WhitePaper_RaisingTheBenchmark_Sept2011.pdf

The cost of housing is the single biggest cost of living issue in Australia today. Compared to other expenditure items, housing costs comprise the biggest share of household budgets – accounting for 18 per cent of household spending on average.

While the average is 18 per cent, over 720,000 low to middle income households pay more than 30 per cent of their income on housing – what we call ‘housing stress’, and more than 460,000 households spend more than half their income on housing costs.

HPLC explain that "Part 10A of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic) commenced on 1 September 2011 – it contains relatively strict limitations around what information can be put on a tenancy blacklist, by whom, how and for how long.

These reforms will be important for homeless Victorians, many of whom will have blacklist entries that make it almost impossible for them to enter the private rental market through a real estate agent. Many of these entries will be now unlawful under the new regulations.

Where clients think they might have an entry on a tenancy database and hope to enter private rental, we are encouraging workers to consider contacting real estate agents, informing them of the new obligations and requesting that entries are reviewed and, if appropriate, removed."

This document provides feedback from surveys and consultations with Special Collectors, People In Charge and Homelessness and allied services on their experiences and reflections on the 2011 Homelessness Census Strategy in the NWMR. It also includes feedback from the NW Special Area Supervisors on their experiences in their role. It suggests a range of recommendations on ways to improve future Census counts in order to more effectively and accurately develop homelessness estimates using Census data.