Safe, secure housing key to reducing high rates of Indigenous homelessness, incarceration: experts

Providing safe and secure housing through Indigenous-led services is a simple yet underappreciated solution to reduce not only high rates of Indigenous homelessness but also incarceration, experts say.

The disproportionate rate of Indigenous incarceration has been in focus amid the recent Black Lives Matter protests, but addressing the lack of housing would help reduce overrepresentation in jails and other institutions such as out-of-home care, researchers say.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people also made up 26 per cent of specialist homelessness services clients in 2018-19 yet only 3.2 per cent of the Australian population in the same year, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Indigenous men make up 28.6 per cent of all men in prison in Australia, and Indigenous women 36 per cent of jailed women, despite making up a fraction of the total population, The Guardian reported.

Homelessness NSW Senior Aboriginal Project Officer Monique Wiseman said there are just four Aboriginal-led homelessness organisations despite making up almost one-third of clients, after 2014 reforms that reduced the number of Aboriginal-controlled organisations.

Ms Wiseman said the figures could be higher as the issue could be masked by overcrowded housing.

“In the inner city, there’s a lot of hidden homelessness. A lot of mob sleep rough for a very long time,” she said. “When we’re talking about regional and remote areas, you won’t usually see [it], mob won’t let people be placed without a roof.”

Since the NSW Department of Housing was rebranded into NSW Family and Community Services many Indigenous people experiencing homeless are afraid of seeking help, according to Ms Wiseman.

“That’s a real trigger for Aboriginal people because they’re scared of losing their children … because if a mother is fleeing domestic violence, they might lose their children in that process,” Ms Wiseman said.

University of Queensland associate professor of humanities and social science Cameron Parsell said housing was the critical foundation for addressing not only homelessness but also incarceration and a range of Closing The Gap targets.

“Poor housing and homelessness is the key drivers of recidivism. Without housing, people are more likely to go back into prison,” Mr Parsell said. “Homelessness and inadequate housing is one of the major drivers into the care of the state. One of the indirect benefits is to enabling them to stay safe in their families.”

He said adequate housing could prevent Indigenous Australians being subjected to police intervention and the criminal justice system.

“Without housing, we know there is a direct line to increasing rates of homelessness and incarceration but also poor outcomes like child protection, poor health, poor education and a disgraceful life expectancy,” Mr Parsell said.

“Providing housing is a clear solution that will demonstrably improve their lives. Will it be utopic and a panacea? Absolutely not. But it will go a long way to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to control the conditions of their lives.”

City Futures Research Centre Associate Director Professor Hal Pawson said specialist homelessness data collected every year by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed Indigenous homelessness had been rising and at a faster pace.

“Non-Indigenous homelessness in the past three years is up by 12 per cent whereas for non-Indigenous homelessness it is only up by 3 per cent,” Mr Pawson said. “That is a continuation of a trend that has been going on for ever since that system started in 2012.”

The rate of Indigenous home ownership was much lower than the broader population, he said, the only official measure of Indigenous housing disadvantage.

But he said governments needed to look at the problem earlier rather than after the homelessness had occurred, adding housing and employment plans needed to be in place on leaving prisons and out-of-home care.

Australia Housing and Urban Research Institute executive director Michael Fotheringham said overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in prisons and the homeless population was unacceptable.

“It’s a systemic failure. It is a clear signal of systemic disadvantage for our first Australians,” Dr Fortheringham said. 

“Housing is not a specific target of the Closing The Gap framework but it underpins most of the targets … it is the baseline for the other things to be achieved but it is not a key target in its own right.

“You try to enrol in a primary school without a secure address. How do you close the gap in educational attainment if a disproportionate number of people in community can’t enrol at school?”

He said one driver of homelessness was leaving institutional settings such as hospitals, out-of-home care and correctional facilities.

“If you release someone from custody with no roof over their head, you’re entrapping people,” he said. “That’s punishing poverty.”