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This week is national homelessness week in Australia. I attended a panel by a bunch of charities here in Melbourne earlier in the week, and one of the things t

by vertis 10y ago

This week is national homelessness week in Australia. I attended a panel by a bunch of charities here in Melbourne earlier in the week, and one of the things that kept coming up was the need to do more about affordable housing. In Australia at least the major population centres are very expensive to live in (and there isn't much in the way of regional centres to offer alternatives). It's such a risk for lower socio-economic groups that a bad run of luck can put them into a position of losing their accommodation. Interestingly, some of the stats being shared by the panel indicated that the amount of money expended on dealing with the problems surrounding a given homeless individual are actually more than it would theoretically take to remove them from homelessness more directly (don't know how accurate that is).

empressplay 10y ago
There's plenty of work in the regional centres (for example Bendigo) for people who have mid-level skills and salary expectations. These cities are hardly the sticks. The truth is people like living in the capital cities because of the amenities, but the amenities are what drives up the housing prices! So, while I agree that the housing prices in Melbourne and Sydney are insane, currently, they would still be quite expensive even in an ideal situation, so wouldn't it make more sense to make regional centres better able to handle / more attractive to lower socio-economic groups / homeless people who can't afford to live in the capital cities? Bendigo, for example, is two hours from Melbourne on the train (which costs less than $20). Seems to me like an ideal place to offer low-cost housing...
- jacalata 10y ago
  > people who have mid-level skills and salary expectations. The really difficult homeless population doesn't have either of those. That aside, to make Bendigo attractive, you need to move/duplicate all of the social services infrastructure and family connections that people have in Melbourne (which are the 'amenities' that are important to the borderline homeless group). If their kids are in high school in Frankston then many people would rather stay homeless in Melbourne than move to Bendigo. Then if they have existing food bank connections, court dates, legal clinics, etc - it's a big risk to leave this for some temporary housing and a theoretical job.
  - ruste 10y ago
    If they'd rather stay homeless when other options are available there's not much you can do for them is there...
    - jacalata 10y ago
      Of course there is, it starts with not pretending that just because they're homeless they must have no commitments, no attachments, no fear of new and unknown scenarios etc. If the only possible option you can think of is "let's ship them off to another city" then you can't have put more than 1 seconds thought into the topic.
      - ruste 10y ago
        >Of course there is, it starts with not pretending that just because they're homeless they must have no commitments, no attachments, no fear of new and unknown scenarios etc. Everyone has commitments and attachments, but looking after your own well being should generally take priority. If you prioritize those attachments first you do so by choice. Fear of new and unknown scenarios should not be keeping people homeless.
        jacalata 10y ago
        It's a failing strategy to build your social services around some kind of condescending shit around "maybe homeless people should be better and mentally stronger and then they would see the cornucopia of opportunity that is available to them". And not to get too abstract - nobody has even solved homelessness in Bendigo for the locals, let alone for people shipped out from Melbourne! This entire topic is a stupid hypothetical that is not a realistic solution in any way except that it really easily ends up as a justification to dismiss homeless people as causing their own problems.
        ruste 10y ago
        That pretty well agrees with what I'm saying...
jacalata 10y ago
I don't know the numbers for Australia since we don't have the same healthcare issues, but there are a lot of studies in the US that have said that: this article contains several examples http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-so...

by vertis 10y ago

empressplay 10y ago

There's plenty of work in the regional centres (for example Bendigo) for people who have mid-level skills and salary expectations. These cities are hardly the sticks. The truth is people like living in the capital cities because of the amenities, but the amenities are what drives up the housing prices! So, while I agree that the housing prices in Melbourne and Sydney are insane, currently, they would still be quite expensive even in an ideal situation, so wouldn't it make more sense to make regional centres better able to handle / more attractive to lower socio-economic groups / homeless people who can't afford to live in the capital cities? Bendigo, for example, is two hours from Melbourne on the train (which costs less than $20). Seems to me like an ideal place to offer low-cost housing...

jacalata 10y ago
> people who have mid-level skills and salary expectations. The really difficult homeless population doesn't have either of those. That aside, to make Bendigo attractive, you need to move/duplicate all of the social services infrastructure and family connections that people have in Melbourne (which are the 'amenities' that are important to the borderline homeless group). If their kids are in high school in Frankston then many people would rather stay homeless in Melbourne than move to Bendigo. Then if they have existing food bank connections, court dates, legal clinics, etc - it's a big risk to leave this for some temporary housing and a theoretical job.
- ruste 10y ago
  If they'd rather stay homeless when other options are available there's not much you can do for them is there...
  - jacalata 10y ago
    Of course there is, it starts with not pretending that just because they're homeless they must have no commitments, no attachments, no fear of new and unknown scenarios etc. If the only possible option you can think of is "let's ship them off to another city" then you can't have put more than 1 seconds thought into the topic.
    - ruste 10y ago
      >Of course there is, it starts with not pretending that just because they're homeless they must have no commitments, no attachments, no fear of new and unknown scenarios etc. Everyone has commitments and attachments, but looking after your own well being should generally take priority. If you prioritize those attachments first you do so by choice. Fear of new and unknown scenarios should not be keeping people homeless.
      - jacalata 10y ago
        It's a failing strategy to build your social services around some kind of condescending shit around "maybe homeless people should be better and mentally stronger and then they would see the cornucopia of opportunity that is available to them". And not to get too abstract - nobody has even solved homelessness in Bendigo for the locals, let alone for people shipped out from Melbourne! This entire topic is a stupid hypothetical that is not a realistic solution in any way except that it really easily ends up as a justification to dismiss homeless people as causing their own problems.
        ruste 10y ago
        That pretty well agrees with what I'm saying...

jacalata 10y ago

I don't know the numbers for Australia since we don't have the same healthcare issues, but there are a lot of studies in the US that have said that: this article contains several examples http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-so...