Three-year program, Journey to Social Inclusion, led to 75% of participants staying in stable housing, and an 80% drop in need for health services

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

An experimental three-year program involving 40 homeless people has illustrated a way to virtually eradicate long-term homelessness in Australia, according to the charity that has overseen the project.



Sacred Heart Mission, a homeless support group based in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, started the program to end chronic homelessness in 2009 and has spent the past year analysing results.

The program, called Journey to Social Inclusion, provided 40 people who had slept rough for more than 12 months or had been in and out of homelessness for at least three years with a heightened level of support.

The group was found affordable, long-term housing within seven months and provided with 15 case workers, who would spend about a day a week helping them with various issues and connecting them to doctors, addiction specialists and mental health workers.

A separate group of 48 homeless people, who were provided the standard, less frequent support that lasts three months rather than three years, was also studied for comparison.

After three years, researchers found that 75% of the Journey to Social Inclusion participants were still in stable housing, compared with 58% of the other group.

There had been an 80% decline in the need for health services among participants – four times the level of the standard group. The mortality rate for those in the new program was half that of those using existing homeless services.

Sacred Heart Mission said the new approach should be applied to the 20% of Australia’s 80,000-strong homeless population that is deemed to be chronically homeless, which is defined as the inability to find somewhere long-term to live over a six-month period.

“We wanted to find a permanent pathway out of homelessness and I think 75% is a decent success rate. It’s a surprisingly good outcome,” Cathy Humphrey, chief executive of Sacred Heart Mission, told Guardian Australia.

“I’ve worked here for 14 years and I’ve seen the same people come in and out of the organisation time and again. The existing system cycles people in and out of homelessness; it only deals with people when they are in crisis, which means there is no stability in their lives.

“With a new level of intensity of support, we were not seeing these people back in crisis. They were getting on with their lives. We needed to address the underlying causes that are causing homelessness, not just putting a roof over their heads. So that’s a focus on mental health or substance abuse, for example.”

Humphrey said that some people struggled to adapt after years of homelessness, and a number chose to sleep on chairs rather than in a bed. Some people will require ongoing support, beyond three years, to deal with the issues that cause and exacerbate homelessness.

Despite this, Sacred Heart Mission said a higher level of support services and rapid rehousing would save the government money.

The charity’s economic modelling shows that the state government saved more than $17,000 a person each year of the three-year study. This is due to the reduced demand for police, hospital and emergency psychiatric services that regularly interact with long-term homeless people.

Over 10 years the government will save $1.32 for every $1 invested for fuller support for the chronically homeless, Sacred Heart Mission estimates.

The charity wants to raise another $4m from government and private sources to run another program, involving 60 people. It will also aim to spread the idea beyond Victoria; discussions are planned with indigenous groups in the Northern Territory.

“Our ultimate goal is for this to become a service model for people experiencing long-term homelessness,” Humphrey said.

Martin Foley, Victoria’s housing minister, said he was proud of the work undertaken by Sacred Heart Mission.

“The work being done by Sacred Heart Mission through the Journey to Social Inclusion program is providing invaluable information as we look at tackling the problem of long-term homelessness and entrenched generational disadvantage,” he said.