Think homelessness is just a city issue? These hotspots show otherwise

Updated

For the first time, a new map has revealed the scale and type of the often hidden homeless population.

While we have all seen the disturbing images of people sleeping rough in the CBD, the figures show the issue creeps well into our suburbs.

The map breaks down the types of homelessness experienced in electorates across Victoria:

Sleeping rough

Crisis accommodation

Couch surfing

Boarding house, and

"Severely" crowded dwellings

It was developed by the Council to Homeless Persons off the latest Census figures, and shows that while many people do "sleep rough" in the CBD, those in the suburbs usually face the other, less visible, forms of homelessness

Melbourne's CBD has the highest number of homeless people in Victoria at 1,618, including 359 who sleep on the streets.

It is followed by Dandenong — 30 kilometres to the south-east — with 1,163 homeless, of which only 16 sleep on the streets.

The electorates of Footscray, Richmond, St Albans, Albert Park, Broadmeadows, Clarinda, Oakleigh and Burwood round out the top 10 worst places for homelessness in Victoria.

And as people like Robyn and Luis can attest, being homeless in the suburbs is no easier than in the CBD.

Luis

Luis, 43, lives in a garage in Melbourne's northern suburbs.

It has no power connected other than the solar-generated electricity he's managed to rig up himself.

At nights he sleeps under a foil sheet to keep warm.

Up until a few months back he was paying $150 a week to lease a room in the five-bedroom rooming house, but when his savings ran out his landlord agreed to let him live in the garage in exchange for doing maintenance and odd jobs.

He says he applied for 521 jobs without any luck, despite having a masters of IT and a bachelor in journalism.

"Many people might say, 'just get a job and you'll be out of it.' Well easier said than done," he said.

"I was applying for anything and everything, kitchen hands, whatever.

"At one point I couldn't see a way out."

Originally from Mexico, he is now seeing light at the end of the tunnel after a manager from the City of Kingston heard his story and offered him an administrative job.

"Finally I got my break. I am very grateful. I'm on my way," he said.

"But homelessness can happen to anyone. It's not a situation where you decide to be homeless."

Robyn

Robyn, 61, is a mother of four and grandmother to five and said she ended up homeless in Dandenong "in the blink of an eye".

She had stopped working to look after her partner's children, then the relationship abruptly ended.

"One minute, well I wouldn't say I had it all, but I had a roof over my head, I was in a relationship, I felt secure," she said.

"Then one Saturday morning I got the heave-ho and that was it, end of story."

With no money and nowhere to live, she turned to her daughter for the first six months.

Then she moved into a 14-person rooming house. That was "12 years, three months and five days" ago, she recalls of her unexpectedly long stay.

Surrounded at times by drug-fuelled violence, her emotional health suffered.

Leaving was not an option, she said, because she could not afford anywhere else to live on her disability pension.

But two months ago, her life changed.

Robyn got her own one-bedroom unit with the help of a rental subsidy — paying $104 a week.

"It's my little piece of utopia," she said.

Where's the political pressure?

As suburban homelessness is not as visible, there is less political pressure to act.

Victorians head to the polls in November and the Council to Homeless Persons wants the next state government to commit to building 3,000 new public and low-cost homes every year for the next decade.

The organisation's policy manager Kate Colvin said half of the new properties must be one or two bedrooms to address a "critical shortage" of homes for single people.

"There's really been a lack of investment over time in social housing," she said.

"That 3,000 properties a year is what's needed to get us to a point where when someone becomes homeless there's a proper safety net for them."

She said the Victorian government had the money to pay for it because the unaffordability of housing had pumped billions in taxes into state coffers.

The organisation's 17-point "call for action" also includes ongoing funding for the Private Rental Assistance Program, which helps people get a foothold in the private market.

Topics: homelessness, community-and-society, government-and-politics, australia

First posted