Homelessness and Rough Sleeping

Having a home is essential to a person’s health and wellbeing.

Unfortunately, not all Australians have the same access to safe and affordable housing.

The absence of a home, what we call homelessness, is a deeply distressing and isolating experience, cutting people off from their community and making it extremely difficult for them to actively participate in our society. Even simple things like attending school, going to work or getting to medical appointments are very hard when you do not have a stable home.

Homelessness can take many forms, with the most visible being primary homelessness or ‘rough sleeping’; when a person is sleeping on the streets, in parks, in cars and in vacant properties.

Rough sleeping makes up around 7 per cent of homelessness while the remainder is ‘hidden homelessness’, living in rooming houses, on couches or over-crowding. 

Here in Dandenong, we have the highest level of homelessness in Victoria with 2,366 people experiencing homelessness.

The causes of a person experiencing homelessness are varied. Financial difficulties, family and domestic violence, and the housing crisis all contribute to the growing levels of homelessness in Australia.