Census highlights homeless plight

GREATER Dandenong has the highest level of homelessness in Victoria.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures have revealed that 1634 people were without a permanent roof over their head in the municipality on Census night last year.
But Cornerstone co-ordinator Don Cameron said these people could have been more inclined to fill out the form than those in other areas around the state.
He said the Dandenong outreach service, boarding homes and other local agencies encouraged rough sleepers to participate so “the government would be more likely to direct funding to agencies like ours”.
“Which is why Dandenong rough sleepers may have been more inclined to fill out a form than other places around Victoria,” Mr Cameron said.
But regardless, the figure is too high, he said.
He likened reducing homelessness to dealing with a cliff that people kept falling from.
Instead of building an ambulance station at the bottom to treat them, a fence should be built at the top.
“Prevention is so much better, cheaper and more effective than attempts to ‘cure’ the problem,” Mr Cameron said.
“Family breakdown is more costly than we recognise. Family structure plays a huge role in homelessness.”
He said the homeless men he encountered almost always came from a family where their father wasn’t present so more time, money and resources should be invested in helping families stay together.
Mr Cameron said effective detox programs were crucial to keeping people off the streets, and alcohol advertising “normalising drinking as part of our culture” needed to be addressed.
“Currently the government stats say something like 90 per cent of people who do rehab are back doing rehab again within two years,” he said.
Mr Cameron said an increase in government housing and better management of existing housing would also help to get people off the streets.
He recalled one man who’d been on the waiting list for six years and broke his parole to return to prison rather than stay on the streets.
Council to Homeless Persons (CHP) CEO Jenny Smith said more than half of those who identified themselves as homeless in Greater Dandenong on the Census were living in severely overcrowded dwellings.
“Equivalent to a family of seven living in a two bedroom flat,” she said.
“Severe overcrowding like this was a hallmark of Victorian era slums, with unacceptable consequences for physical and mental health, as well as children’s ability to study and learn.
“We need to address the issues, like the high costs of rental housing, that force people to live in severely overcrowded homes.”
Australians for Affordable Housing figures showed the City of Greater Dandenong also had the highest rate of housing stress in Victoria, with 21 per cent of households on a low income and paying more than a third of that income in rent or mortgage repayments.
“Rents in Greater Dandenong have risen 56 per cent since the last Census, making it much harder for households to make ends meet, and putting them at risk of homelessness,” Ms Smith said.