A key promise Labor made before the 2022 election is held up in the Senate, with the Greens saying they will continue to oppose the Albanese government’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) unless the legislation includes support for renters.
On a recent episode of ABC’s Q+A, Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah faced off with the Greens spokesman for housing and homelessness, Max Chandler-Mather, with the former stating that the Greens were “standing in the way” of progress on the issue of social housing.
In doing so, Dr Ananda-Rajah highlighted the problem of homelessness, claiming: “We have, tonight, 122,000 people sleeping rough.”
“Eighty per cent of those are women,” she continued. “Where women go, children follow. One in seven of those are 12 years or less; they are children, they are babies.”
So, are those numbers correct? RMIT ABC Fact Check takes a look.
The verdict
Dr Ananda-Rajah is wrong.
While official figures show that 122,494 people were experiencing homelessness on census night in 2021, only 7,636 of those people were “sleeping rough” as defined by experts.
Additionally, males make up the majority of both the total count of people experiencing homelessness (57 per cent) and those sleeping rough (66 per cent).
There were 208 children aged under 12 sleeping rough on census night (3 per cent). However, children did indeed make up one in seven people experiencing homelessness.
Defining and measuring homelessness
Fact Check has previously relied upon the “Estimating Homelessness” dataset of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which is based on census responses.
RMIT University’s Professor Chris Chamberlain, an expert on homelessness who helped the ABS develop its methodology for counting the homeless population, told Fact Check the ABS data was the most useful when it came to weighing up Dr Ananda-Rajah’s claim.
A spokesperson for Launch Housing, which is a Melbourne-based organisation delivering homelessness services and housing support, told Fact Check the ABS data provided a “picture of homelessness at the time the census is taken” but that, ideally, measures used more frequently were needed.
“The challenge in obtaining up-to-date and complete homelessness statistics highlights the fact that we need to care more about homelessness to more meaningfully measure it,” the spokesperson noted.
They pointed to two alternative sources of data: localised counts of those sleeping rough that are available for some council areas in Melbourne and publications produced by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) detailing the number of people accessing homelessness services.
According to Professor Chamberlain, however, the AIHW data provided “an annual figure, not a point-in-time count” and “some homeless people never go to services for help”.
“The point-in-time count [provided by the ecnsus] is important for policy purposes, although the numbers probably go up and down,” he said.
Fact Check has assessed this claim using the ABS figures.
In 2012, the ABS developed a “statistical definition” of homelessness, which is informed by “an understanding of homelessness as ‘home’-lessness, not ‘roof’-lessness”.
According to the ABS, a person is considered homeless if their living arrangement:
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Is in a dwelling that is inadequate; or
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Has no tenure, or if their initial tenure is short and not extendable; or
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Does not allow them to have control of — and access to — space for social relations.
In order to measure the homeless population on census night, the ABS liaises with service providers and engages “specialised field staff to count people sleeping rough on a special interview-based form”.
The census also allows people to respond to the question on “usual residence” with “none”.
What does ‘sleeping rough’ mean?
Dr Ananda-Rajah referred to “people sleeping rough” when making her claim.
Among the six “operational groups” used by the ABS when counting the number of people experiencing homelessness is “people living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out”.
According to Professor Chamberlain, these people were considered “rough sleepers”, a definition also recognised in the homelessness services sector and used by Fact Check in previous analyses.
He noted that rough sleepers were the “most difficult” group to count on census night and, as a result, were “almost certainly undercounted”.
“People who sleep rough often ‘hide away’ because they are scared of being attacked while asleep,” he said, adding that most rough sleepers did not do so continuously.
“Rather, they move around between various forms of temporary accommodation and sleep rough occasionally. Typically, this is when they have no other options available to them.”
Counting people experiencing homelessness
The latest ABS Estimating Homelessness release, published in March and based on the 2021 census, put the number of people experiencing homelessness in Australia at 122,494.
This count, however, incorporates all of the ABS’ homeless “operational” groups, including those people living in overcrowded dwellings, which Professor Chamberlain noted was not without controversy.
He pointed to the final report of a 2021 inquiry into homelessness in Australia undertaken by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs.
According to a submission to the inquiry from the Department of Social Services, Australia was the only OECD nation that included severe overcrowding and boarding houses in its estimation of homelessness.
“The report argued that homelessness and overcrowding are not the same thing,” Professor Chamberlain said.
“Homeless people do not have a home. Homeless people move around between various forms of temporary accommodation. [Whereas] people in overcrowded dwellings have a home, but they do not have sufficient space (bedrooms) for their needs.”
Indeed, among its recommendations, the inquiry suggested “the ABS commission a review of the statistical definition of homelessness to ensure a more nuanced approach to the specific circumstances in which people in such conditions should be included in the official definition and the headline figure of Australia’s homeless population”.”
Checking Dr Ananda-Rajah’s numbers
Asked to provide a source for her claim, a spokesman for Dr Ananda-Rajah pointed Fact Check to the latest ABS data.
As discussed above, that data shows 122,494 people overall were experiencing homelessness on census night.
However, Dr Ananda-Rajah referred specifically to people sleeping rough, of which there were 7,636 (including 208 children).
And while she also claimed 80 per cent of those rough sleepers were women, the data shows that males made up the majority of people experiencing homelessness (68,516 or 56 per cent) and of those who were sleeping rough (5,066 or 66 per cent).
Regarding homelessness among women and children, Dr Andana-Rajah’s spokesman said:
“Michelle would like to clarify this comment. She meant to say that women accounted for 80 per cent of the increase in people experiencing homelessness in 2021, rather than 80 per cent of all people experiencing homelessness. Per the last census, the precise figure is 81.7 per cent.”
Indeed, the ABS states in its overview of the data: “Females accounted for 81.7 per cent of the 6,067 increase of people experiencing homelessness in 2021.”
When it came to children, Dr Ananda-Rajah told Q&A that “one in seven” rough sleepers were aged under 12.
However, while one in seven of all people experiencing homelessness were children (that is, 17,646, or 14.4 per cent), 208 were reportedly sleeping rough (0.17 per cent or about one in 588).
More specifically, 1 in every 36 rough sleepers was a child, accounting for 2.72 per cent of the total.
Principal researcher: Ellen McCutchan
Sources
- The Greens, Bandt’s NPC Address will Lash labor as the Party of Property Moguls, Outline Costed Plan for Rent Freeze, April 26, 2023
- RMIT ABC Fact Check, Promise check: Establish a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, ABC News, May 19, 2023
- Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Q+A, ABC TV, May 22, 2023
- RMIT ABC Fact Check, Fact check: Are 30,000 women and 100,000 men sleeping rough on the streets of Australia?, ABC News, February 11, 2016
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Information Paper — A Statistical Definition of Homelessness, September 4, 2012
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Estimating Homelessness: Census methodology, March 22, 2023
- Australia Bureau of Statistics, Estimating Homelessness: Census, March 22, 2023
- RMIT ABC Fact Check, Why Luke Howarth’s claims on homelessness in Australia get mixed verdicts, ABC News, July 15, 2019
- RMIT ABC Fact Check, Without a Home, 2018
- Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, Inquiry into Homelessness in Australia, August 4, 2021