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Wesley Mission today announced a seven-point action plan to tackle long term homelessness after its latest study found that the majority of Sydney’s homeless have held a job but have been forced onto the streets or into shelters because of a major financial crisis.

More than a bed: Sydney’s homeless speak out is the fourth report by Wesley Mission and offers the first evidence-based research into the lives of Sydney’s homeless.

Seventy one per cent of the respondents identified the housing crisis as the major reason for them becoming homelessness. Of those, 88 per cent said accumulated debt and unexpected financial crisis as the factors behind the housing crisis.

The report also found that once a person becomes homeless it is very difficult to live a secure life ever again – almost one in five of people polled had been on the streets for five to 10 years while two-thirds had found themselves in crisis accommodation up to six times.

The Wesley study was conducted over six weeks involving 206 homeless people staying in six inner-Sydney shelters. The homeless were asked a range of questions on their overall wellbeing. Their wellbeing scores were compared with the general population of Sydney.

A quarter of homeless respondents said that before becoming homeless they had been earning an income greater than what the Australian Bureau of Statistics terms “medium high” for Sydney, the Wesley Report says, showing how easy it is for an ordinary person to slip through the cracks to a cold life on the streets.

The 2001 Census – the last available – showed that 2063 people were homeless in inner Sydney.

“Contrary to popular perception, while alcohol and drugs can keep people on the streets they are not the main pathway to homelessness, said the CEO Of Wesley Mission the Rev Keith Garner. “Alcohol and other substances are often used to medicate depression and despair.”

Relationship breakdown – an issue affecting a third of all marriages in Australia – is the second leading cause of homelessness, the study shows. Marriage and divorce figures for the homeless are the same as for the general population – again showing a common experience of major crises across society.

The general belief that food is a primary need of the people on the street is not true for Sydney’s homeless, the Wesley Report says: satisfaction with access to food is a high 82.6 per cent – greater than the acceptable wellbeing average for mainstream Australia.

But homeless people starve in terms of personal relationships, and their sense of wellbeing is so low compared to the wellbeing of the general population that the Wesley Report findings help to show why homeless people suffer high rates of clinical depression.

• The total wellbeing score of the homeless population in inner Sydney - 55.2 - is well below the acceptable wellbeing range for Australia which is between 73.4 and 76.4.  The critically low life satisfaction measures, which were more than 20 points below the acceptable level for Australia, were: Personal relationships (41.6) Current achievements in life (45.1) and Standard of living (48.3)
  
• The trauma of childhood abuse had the greatest impact on the wellbeing of homeless people. More than two-thirds of those who were abused as children had a disturbingly low sense of wellbeing – problems so deep-seated that, for one in every five respondents, they contributed to continuing homelessness.
  
• Despite popular perceptions most inner Sydney homeless people had originally come from elsewhere, with only 27 per cent having lived in inner Sydney prior to becoming homeless.

Wesley Mission has a seven-point action plan to tackle chronic long-term homelessness and provide tangible and lasting solutions to the problem. While there are many good services available, these operate in a piecemeal fashion with little integration.

“It is essential to bring services to homeless people in an accessible and integrated manner,” Mr Garner said.

“Homeless people should be able to access mental health services (including trauma recovery) addictions rehabilitation, relationships counselling, occupational therapy and appropriate legal services. When a homeless person comes to a service he or she should be able to be assessed for employment and pre-employment needs, education, health and mental health needs.

“Preventing homelessness is more than just providing a meal and a bed: too many of our homeless end up on the round-about of rejection: moving from the streets to an emergency shelter to hospital psychiatric wards and then back onto the streets. We need more than temporary and episodic solutions, but ‘whole of life’ responses.

“For too long we have worked in silos with ad hoc responses rather than in integrated and proactive ways. Homelessness is a complex problem: we need a whole of government and a whole of community approach – from planning to delivery and reporting.”

Download the full report or make a donation

All photos are owned by Wesley Mission. These images may not be reproduced without the express permission of the photographer. Please contact Wesley Mission for more information.

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Federal Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek addresses media at the launch of the Wesley Report, More Than a Bed: Sydney’s Homeless Speak Out	Wesley Mission CEO, Rev Keith Garner addresses media at the launch of the Wesley Report, More Than a Bed: Sydney’s Homeless Speak Out
From Left to Right: Wesley Mission CEO, Rev Keith Garner, Wesley Mission former client, Emmanuel and Federal Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek	Federal Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek

Graeme Cole  
Public Affairs Manager
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Dinoo Kelleghan  
Public Affairs Officer
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