Homeless in Australia.

Why does our Shameful government - under a Monetary System, allow this homeless problem continue for well over 150.000 men woman and children, here in Australia?

Homeless people are the people who are without regular house or dwelling because they cannot afford to have one.  They are those who live on the street or those people who are in shelter. A shelter is an institution that provides a temporary residence for the homeless and it is not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation.

In Australia, there are 105,000 Australians who are homeless on any given night.  These homeless people in Australia are those whose houses are damaging to their health and / or have inadequate personal amenities.   Homeless people do not have security of tenure in their houses which means they do not have the legal right for a continued occupation of their homes.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the definition homelessness focuses on a person’s situation of:

currently living on the street;

living in crisis or refuge accommodation;

living in temporary arrangements without security of tenure-for example, moving between the residences of friends or relatives, living in squats, caravans or improvised dwellings, or living in boarding houses;

living in unsafe family circumstances-for example, families in which child abuse or domestic violence is a threat or has occurred;

living on very low incomes and facing extraordinary expenses or personal crisis.

There are many homelessness organizations in Australia who are continuously fighting homelessness.  An example of this homelessness organization is the Homelessness Australia Inc.  Its purpose is to promote national policy and action to reduce homelessness and its impact upon the diverse range of people it affects through proactive research.

The Australian government released “The White Paper on Homelessness, The Road Home” on 21 December 2008.  Its purpose was to identify the need for a long-term research strategy to address significant research gaps and build on existing research and data collection efforts to end homelessness in Australia.

In 2009, the “National Homeless Research Agenda 2009-2013” was released.  With this agenda, the Australian government provided a total of $1.5 million to 16 research projects with the purpose of understan

ding homelessness in Austr

alia and finding ways on how to end it.

Australian Federation of Homelessness Organisations, http://www.afho.org.au/

Australian Institute of Heath and Welfare 2005, Homelessness FAQs, http://www.aihw.gov.au/housing/sacs/faqs.cfm

Homelessness Australia http://www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au/site/index.php


Mackenzie, D & Chamberlain, C 2001, Counting the Homeless, Australian Bureau of Statistics, http://www.countingthehomeless.com.au.

Mission Australia, http://www.mission.com.au

Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 25 (1), http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html