Despite recent Census statistics indicating almost no change in the number of homeless people in Canberra between 2001 and 2006, there has been a 40 per cent increase in the demand for emergency housing in the capital in the past two years, according to Oasis Youth Residential Services’ manager Allan Collins.

A 2006 Census statistical report released this month (September, 2008) showed the rate of homelessness per 10,000 people in the ACT to be 42, the same rate as recorded for NSW and Victoria and only slightly higher than the 40 homeless people per 10,000 people counted in the ACT in the 2001 Census.

Mr Collins said crisis accommodation services were stretched to their limits and were unable to provide emergency accommodation for everybody.

“Services are doing their best but there are still people in Canberra who have to sleep on park benches for lack of better options,” he said. “There is often just nowhere for them to go.”

Mr Collins said the lack of affordable housing available in Canberra was a major contributing factor, and options for families who lost the family home were grim.

“We are seeing more and more families becoming homeless due to the housing affordability problem,” he said. “The sad thing is, families generally have to be split up; the father and youngest child go to one refuge, teenagers another and the mothers end up in women’s refuges. We’ve never been able to keep family groups together in this situation, and this is a real added disadvantage for them.”  

Mr Collins said Government housing was not a realistic option for most people as it had not kept up with demand.

“The availability of Government houses and the fact that the referral and application process for properties is so laborious has meant that Government housing is running at a two year deficit,” he said. “We have a crisis limit of three months at Oasis; after that we can only refer them to transitional accommodation for a 12 month period if there are places, so you can see there is still around nine months that they are without accommodation and people just get bounced around the system. The Government has created a situation that is impossible to achieve.”