The influence of housing (and its inadequacy) on the satisfaction with life (SWL) of persons experiencing homelessness (PEH) after gaining housing is understudied yet essential in shaping policies and support systems. This paper examines the relationship between householders' homelessness histories and their SWL after being recently housed in Melbourne. Of the 169 valid responses, 84% had experienced homelessness (51.5% had ever slept rough); 16% were never previously homeless. Three dimensions of SWL are identified using principal component analysis. Further analysis show that satisfaction with housing and neighbourhood conditions is statistically similar, irrespective of respondents' homelessness histories. For tenants who have ever slept rough, this was their highest-rated dimension, underscoring the essential role of housing in their SWL. However, differences in satisfaction with social and economic participation among the groups suggest that housing plays a limited role in aspects of well-being not directly related to housing. We discuss the findings' implications for social housing providers and housing policy.

Over the last three decades, overseas researchers have utilised administrative data to identify distinct patterns in shelter use. In Australia, the use of administrative data to understand service utilisation patterns among people 'at risk' of homelessness and experiencing homelessness is limited. A small number of Australian studies suggest that there are different patterns of service use. However, these studies are either drawn from single sites or utilise limited timeframes, and they are not strictly comparable with international studies as there is no equivalent to shelters in Australia. What remains unclear is whether service use patterns are agency-specific or exist at a systems level, and the relationship between household characteristics and service utilisation. This paper fills this gap using a novel subset of an administrative dataset of 70,000 unique households that presented to six Initial Assessment and Planning (IAP) services in metropolitan Melbourne between 2014 and 2020. Our findings suggest three distinct patterns of service use (light, periodic, and regular) and while we find no gender differences between the three clusters, regular users are younger and more likely to have a range of disabling conditions than light and periodic users. The paper concludes with implications for policy and practice.

This research examines the organisational and resource implications of transitioning from ‘output-based’ to ‘outcomes-based’ funding arrangements for providing social housing in Australia. It explores relevant housing policy contexts, reviewing opportunities and key policy barriers for this reform goal.With outcomes-based service models, organisational funding arrangements are tied to specific service outcomes (such as better health or employment outcomes) rather than discrete service volumes (such as number of clients served). To work properly, outcomes-based funding requires ongoing accurate measurements and evaluation of the effectiveness of welfare interventions. While there is widespread agreement among stakeholders—policy makers, service providers and consumers—that a shift from an output-based to an outcome-oriented housing assistance and support system makes sense, there are concerns about the best way to measure outcomes that take into account the complex differences among social housing tenants, and the recognition that when outcome measurement is done poorly, it can have a damaging impact on both service users and service providers.The research strongly recommends government do more to standardise outcomes measures. There are broader national health and social care services datasets that could be used to drive this standardisation of performance benchmarks and measures, such as the existing data analytics and evaluation capabilities of organisations like the Australian Bureau of Statistics or the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare. In addition, establishing a National Housing Outcomes Clearinghouse could support the development of standardised outcomes tools, methods and approaches, clarifying what outcomes agencies are responsible for, while also supporting the dissemination of key outcomes findings to drive service improvements across the sector.

Homelessness is a significant issue facing many Australian people, and one that social workers are likely to encounter in their professional lives. At present, though, there are no guidelines for social work programs on how to transfer homelessness knowledge into social work education programs. Social work curricula need to be informed by homelessness research, policy, and practice to reflect the contemporary Australian terrain, and to be responsive to emerging concerns. One approach, discussed in this article, is the mobilisation of an academia-industry partnership to create a dedicated homelessness subject for social work students. The subject, profiled here, offers an example of how social work can incorporate homelessness knowledge to benefit graduates, the sector, consumers, and academia. IMPLICATIONS Homelessness is a critical issue for social work practice, policy, and research, the impacts of which graduates are likely to encounter regardless of their specific fields of practice. There are no current guidelines for including homelessness in Australian social work education programs. A dedicated social work subject can furnish graduates with a strong foundation for entering the homelessness sector. Academia-industry partnerships have the potential to provide a systematic method of translating homelessness knowledge to future social workers through educational programs.

Interventions that combine unconditional permanent housing with support services, known as Housing First approaches, generally improve housing outcomes for people who have experienced chronic homelessness. However, little is known about their long-run outcomes or the consequences of ending such services. We investigate both aspects by examining the long-run effects of an intensive support program on the housing, employment, and health outcomes of chronically homeless people in Australia. Evaluating the three-year program over six-years using a randomised controlled trial, we document substantially higher rates of housing and better employment outcomes during the program period for the treated group, but no substantial changes in health. Three years after the program ends, we observe no significant differences between the treatment and control group with respect to any outcomes, including housing. Our results imply that stable housing is a necessary but not sufficient condition to overcome multiple sources of economic and social disadvantage.

This paper critically examines the concept of alternative forms of 'homemaking' among people without a settled home. The introductory section establishes the framework for the paper, providing an overview of homelessness and the homemaking literature. Strengths in the homemaking approach are identified, which reconceptualises homelessness as a human-centered phenomenon that can be understood as 'resistance' to societies that block accesses to mainstream housing for people who are (also) socially and economically marginalised. Homemaking moves beyond mainstream academic analyses which explore homelessness in terms of 'sin' (addiction and criminality), 'sickness' (poor health, especially poor mental health) and 'systems' (housing market failure and inadequate social protection and public health systems). The paper argues that, while important in refreshing our thinking about homelessness by offering a new, radical epistemology of housing, homemaking is limited by not contextualising the dwelling practices it seeks to explain, particularly in respect of how it defines 'homelessness' and also risks misinterpreting transitory behavioural adaptations as something deeper.

Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is recognized as an effective intervention for individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness. However, evidence of its efficacy mostly comes from scattered-site PSH. This paper investigates tenancy duration and exit patterns in a single-site, mixed-tenure PSH setting, drawing on nine years of tenancy administration data from a site in Melbourne, Australia. Our methodology combines survival and hazard analyses of tenancy records with analysis of exit reasons. We estimate that the probability of sustaining a tenancy to two years is 50% for supported tenancies and 46% for affordable tenancies. We find that of tenancies that exit, over two-thirds do so in unfavorable circumstances, and these tenancies are shorter than those that exit in favorable circumstances. We find some tenant attributes (including age and psychiatric disability) are predictors of longer tenancies, but tenancies started earlier in the site's history were more likely to exit early. We argue that it is vital to acknowledge that people do exit PSH and to develop effective policy and practice responses to raise tenancy durations where practicable, and ensure that more people who leave do so in favorable circumstances.

The project will examine the coordination between residential treatment and housing and social support services using international comparisons and linked administrative data followed by testing in the field. It aims to enhance transition planning and reduce the risk of housing instability for individuals leaving treatment for mental health and/or substance use problems.

Homeless persons tend to have poorer health than the broader population, and thus have a greater need for health services. However, due to resource constraints impeding access to health care, and the chaotic nature of living as a homeless person, this most disadvantaged group may face greater difficulties accessing health services. We use an Australian panel survey, Journeys Home, to contrast health service use by people experiencing homelessness with service use by a similarly vulnerable, yet formally housed group where we can also control for health-related needs. The paper measures the extent to which transitional and enduring homelessness is related to health service usage controlling for differences in health needs; and investigates whether any differences confirm prior research findings which suggest that individuals suffering homelessness are heavy users of support services (e.g., hospital admissions) but light users of primary health services (e.g., general practitioners (GPs) and dentists) that are an important gateway to specialist services.

Objectives Examine whether exits from incarceration lead to homelessness and whether homelessness leads to incarceration. Methods This paper uses a unique longitudinal dataset which follows disadvantaged Australians over 2.5 years and provides very detailed information on their housing circumstances. Although studies consistently report a positive association between incarceration and homelessness, little is known about the causal relationship between them. We advance in that direction by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of our data in two ways: (i) employing individual fixed effects models to deal with time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity; (ii) lagging key independent variables to minimise reverse causality issues. Results Our results show that homelessness does not increase the risk of incarceration. In contrast, incarceration does increase the probability that an individual will become homeless, but not immediately. Exploiting details of the accommodation calendar 1-24 months after release, we find a modest immediate effect of incarceration on homelessness (a 3 percentage points increase), which increases 6 months after release (to around 12 percentage points) and persists for a further 11 months with respondents most often staying in precarious housing arrangements (boarding houses or with friends with no alternative) rather than becoming literally homelessness. Conclusions Our study shows the importance of having adequate coverage for post-release programs to break the link between incarceration and homelessness. Specifically, we find that the critical period for ex-inmates starts 6 months after release suggesting that this may be the time when support programs are currently lacking and would be most efficient.