Providing homeless people with a roof over their heads is significantly cheaper than leaving them to sleep rough.
This is according to economist Ellen Witte, who has done the sums on homelessness in Australia and found governments would benefit more than they would spend by providing homeless people with “last-resort housing”.
Witte, who does social, environmental and economic impact assessments at consulting firm SGS Economics& Planning, conducted a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis into the economic benefits to society of investing in social housing in collaboration with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne.
The surprising outcome: providing a last-resort bed, for example in a boarding house or emergency accommodation, would generate a saving of $10,800 per homeless person per year.
This is because homeless people are at greater risk of being victims of violence, being perpetrators of crime and of being admitted to hospital emergency departments, all of which costs governments money.
But, according to Witte, once they have a roof over their heads, homeless people are able to start thinking about education, retaining a job, and even paying income tax one day. The benefit for governments is clear: costs reduce.
Witte hopes that the focus on the plight of homeless people in Australia will lead to more investment in social housing at a federal level, though she is doubtful it will actually happen.
“In spite of the overwhelming evidence, the government is not convinced social housing is a priority, and there has not been any significant investment in social housing for a number of years,” she says.
Australia’s ‘hidden homeless’
The statistics are clear: homelessness rates are rising rapidly, and it’s an issue that affects some of the most vulnerable groups in society: teenagers, young parents, people with mental health issues, single women over 55 and domestic violence victims, often with children in tow.
In fact, 36% of people who try to access homelessness services do so because of domestic violence, as the Victorian Royal Inquest into Family Violence revealed.
“A tip of the iceberg”, says Witte. “Many domestic violence victims do not leave the house that they share with their perpetrator, because they have nowhere to go which can lead to some very dangerous situations.”
Victims of domestic violence are among Australia’s growing population of “hidden homeless”. They include couch surfers, house sitters and people who live in their cars, campervans, and in sheds in backyards.
Witte says that investing in social housing could help these people out of homelessness, but she adds: “The last bit of federal investment that went into social housing was through the National Rental Affordability Scheme which was a scheme to try and increase the supply of affordable housing in the market and which ceased a number of years ago.”
Grey nomads or simply homeless?
Single women over the age of 55 are increasingly part of Australia’s homelessness crisis. Like many women of their generation who typically took on the role of homemaker and caregiver for the family, they didn’t build up superannuation through employment and after divorcing find themselves with no money or safety net.
Anja (not her real name) is one example: she’s in her late 50s, highly educated, sporadically employed and a full-time house sitter. But wherever she goes she takes her tent, because “just in case…”.
She explained to SBS Dutch that she became part of the hidden homeless population more than 10 years ago due to a combination of bad investments, an abusive marriage and working in the “gig economy”, which led to periods without income between short-term contracts.
These days Anja spends a lot of time checking housesitting websites to ensure she isn’t left without a roof over her head. She says that she has learned to be cautious, cunning and even picky at times: “I have to feel safe. If I get a weird vibe, I don’t go.”
It’s a nerve-racking lifestyle and Anja says she tries not to think too much about her future. “People like to think that I have an adventurous gypsy life, but in reality I am a highly educated loser. I am embarrassed and ashamed to be in this position at my age.”
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