Banks, Robin; Hartley, Chris --- "Reform road home needs more than good intentions" [2009] ALRCRefJl 32; (2009) 94 Australian Law Reform Commission Reform Journal 18

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Reform Issue 94 Summer 2009

This article appears on pages 18–19 of the original journal.

Reform road home needs more than good intentions

By Robin Banks* and Chris Hartley*

In 10 years, Australia has seen an extraordinary shift in focus on homelessness and with it, recognition of the complex causes of homelessness and the need to deal not simply with the provision of shelter, but to address those underlying complexities.

In that time, there has been a spotlight shone on the impact of the law and legal system as both a causative factor in respect of homelessness, but also as a serious and enduring barrier for people seeking to move out of homelessness into more stable and healthy lives. While much has changed in terms of public awareness of homelessness, there remain many enduring myths: myths that have the potential to skew the focus of responses to homelessness and, consequently, impair our capacity to reduce overall homelessness.

Many people in the community would picture a typical homeless person as a middle-aged man of Anglo-Celtic origin, sleeping rough in one of our inner cities. When thinking about services for homeless people, most people would think of men’s hostels and shelters in the inner urban centres run by the major charities and not-for-profit organisations.

Yet the data on homelessness tells a very different story. In 2001, the national Census recorded that there were 99,900 homeless people of whom almost half were under the age of 25 (46%), and a slightly smaller proportion were women (42%). Of the total population of homeless people counted, 14% were rough sleepers. Most others, while transient, were finding some form of temporary shelter, be it with friends or family, or in supported accommodation services.^[1]

By 2006, the total number of homeless people recorded in the Census had increased to 105,000.^[2] More recently released data indicates that a significant proportion of homeless people are not living in major urban centres, but rather can be found living in rural areas.

The same 10-year period has seen a growing focus on the legal needs of homeless people and the development of services to respond to those needs. While there are services run by local lawyers (including the Reverend Tim Costello in St Kilda) that have provided legal assistance to homeless people for many years, the first large scale attempt to respond to the legal needs of homeless people came with the establishment of the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic (HPLC) by the Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) in Victoria in 2001. This service coordinated the delivery of legal services on a pro bono basis by private law firms at clinics run at crisis accommodation centres and welfare agencies around Melbourne. Since then, similar services were established in 2002 by Queensland PILCH (QPILCH) and in 2004 by PIAC in partnership with PILCH NSW.

A key challenge for all of these services is reaching beyond those members of the homeless community who fit the ‘popular’ perception to the more hidden homeless communities of women, young people, and people in regional areas. Another challenge is to understand the legal issues that are affecting these communities systemically and to seek to bring about reform to laws and programs in the hope that we can begin to seriously reduce the number of people becoming homeless and remaining so.

On the first count, in Victoria, the HPLC has established two clinics in Bendigo and one women-specific clinic in St Kilda. Across the border, a number of regional outreach services have been developed by Legal Aid NSW, which initially got involved in HPLS through a clinic in outer Sydney. There is also a specific HPLS clinic operating for women in inner Sydney and work is currently underway on responding to the needs of Aboriginal people who are homeless, rough sleepers and others who have limited contact with the service. The HPLC in South Australia is currently investigating the use of video teleconferencing to link homeless people in regional and remote areas to law firms based in Adelaide. It is clear that legal services are developing and evolving to respond to emerging and previously unmet needs and in response to improved understanding of the homeless population.

The other critical element of the work of the legal services has been the identification of systemic legal problems and the development of law and policy reform proposals to deal with them. Each of the services has worked on a range of law reform issues, some specifically state-based, others resulting from national laws and programs. Some of the key challenges faced are to achieve reforms to the systems in the major human services bureaucracies that can and do impact on the day-to-day lives of homeless people. These include the rules and procedures in Centrelink and housing departments, and the processing of fines (particularly on-the-spot fines). In the area of law reform, significant work has been done to highlight the situation of homeless people in the electoral systems, in the regulation of boarding and rooming houses, public order offences and discrimination issues.

It is important that homeless people themselves are involved in the identification and reform of these systemic issues. Unfortunately there has been an enduring myth that those that have experienced homelessness are unable or unwilling to engage in law reform and public policy work. However, not only is such involvement an important element of the human rights of homeless people,^[3] it is also likely to result in public policy decisions that are better targeted and more effective in responding to issues surrounding homelessness.

HPLS in NSW and the HPLCs in Victoria, Queensland and SA are leading the way in ensuring decision makers hear the voices of homeless people. A clear focus of HPLS is to gain the input of homeless people to its policy work in a creative and engaging way. A recent example of this focus was the human rights consultation workshops that HPLS and PIAC held in homeless shelters throughout Sydney in response to the Australian Government’s National Human Rights Consultation. These events were jointly conducted with Milk Crate Theatre, a group that produces theatre for the homeless and disadvantaged community. At each workshop, the actors from Milk Crate Theatre performed three stories that were inspired by the real life stories of people from the homeless community. Each of these stories reflected and explored a number of different human rights issues and how they currently play out in Australia.

After the performance, homeless people in attendance were encouraged to provide their stories and ideas about how their human rights are (or are not) protected in Australia and how these protections could be improved. In total, approximately 130 homeless people attended these consultation events. Their answers, ideas and suggestions were used to inform HPLS’ submission to the National Human Rights Consultation. The submissions from the HPLCs in Victoria, Queensland and SA were similarly developed through extensive consultations with those who had experienced homelessness.

Homelessness legal services are also leading the way in establishing dedicated consumer bodies that are equipped to advise government agencies on the best ways of engaging with homeless people. One such group, Street Care, was established by HPLS with funding support from the City of Sydney in February 2009. Street Care, made up entirely of currently and formerly homeless people, is not a short-cut for government to hear from homeless people, but rather a mechanism to provide advice on how best to do so. Since its establishment Street Care has been involved in a number of projects including assisting HPLS to set up and run the human rights workshops. Members of Street Care have also spoken at a number of events including at the Homelessness NSW Annual Conference, the City of Sydney and Mission Australia’s ‘Housing When?’ Conference and the Newcastle City Council’s Homelessness Forum.

Street Care has been established to ensure that decision makers hear not only the Street Care members’ voices but also those of other members of Sydney’s homeless community. To facilitate this, in May 2009 members of Street Care came up with the idea of conducting a ‘Street Survey’ of those currently experiencing homelessness. The survey contains specific questions such as whether compulsory Centrepay payments (a direct bill-paying service for people receiving payments from Centrelink) are a good thing, as well as enabling participants to provide feedback on other systemic issues in the area of homelessness that requires reform. So far more than 40 people experiencing homelessness have responded to Street Care’s Street Survey. The answers provided thus far clearly express the need for greater investment in crisis accommodation and training for police and other enforcement agencies that come in contact with homeless people. The responses provided to the Street Care Street Survey will be used to inform the policy and advocacy work of Street Care and HPLS over the next few months.

It is vital that legal and other services set up in response to homelessness are providing services that respond to unmet need. In order to better understand the needs of homeless people in the areas of service delivery and law reform it is essential that we, as advocates, become the change we would like to see. When acting as advocates for the legal and human rights of homeless people, services must ensure that they are respecting the rights of homeless people to be actively involved in decision-making processes that affect them. To fail to do so means that we are no longer speaking with, or on behalf of, homeless people; we are speaking over the top of them.

* Robin Banks is the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).

* Chris Hartley is the Policy Officer for the Homeless Persons’ Legal Service (HPLS), which is a joint initiative of PIAC and the Public Interest Law Clearing House (NSW). HPLS provides support to Street Care, a consumer representative group that advises on effective consultation with homeless people in NSW.

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[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2050.0—Australian Census Analytic Program: Counting the Homeless, 2001 (2003) <www.abs.gov.au/ AUSSTATS> at 16 September 2009.

[2] Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2050.0—Australian Census Analytic Program: Counting the Homeless, 2006 (2008) <www.abs.gov.au/ AUSSTATS> at 16 September 2009.

[3] The active involvement of affected people in decision-making processes is a human right that is protected under Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the ICCPR). Australia is a State Party to the ICCPR.