The Dynamics of Homelessness: Recent Findings and Their Policy Implications - Dr Guy Johnson

Nearly three quarters of those who remain homeless longest first experienced homelessness when they were young, said Guy Johnson in his keynote address to the YHM 09 conference, 12th October, 2009. 

The problem is even greater for young people who have been in state care, with 60% of those who have been in state care experiencing homelessness at 16 years of age or younger. These young people are more likely to stay homeless longer because they have very little social capital to leverage them out of homelessness when they experience it. Young homeless people are also more likely to develop mental health issues and substance abuse issues after becoming homeless than are those in the general homeless population.

Johnson began his address by raising concerns about the nature of the evidence that may be used to inform policy and program reform under the implementation of the White Paper. While the Rudd government has laudably taken on the idea of evidence based policy as a hopeful circuit breaker from policy informed by political imperatives, Johnson pointed out that what counts as evidence still can become contentious. 'Desired solutions often predetermine what evidence we will use', he said.

As an example he questioned moves by the ABS to tighten the definition of homelessness with the Census count to primary homelessness only, a measure that would look good politically but would have a negative impact if used to inform policy and program development. Johnson said he did not expect the Rudd government to go down that track.

Building on his research on the temporality of homelessness and pathways into homelessness he argued that the homelessness sector should embed in program logic the idea that recovering from homelessness is a process that requires different practices and takes different lengths of time for different populations. Agencies and advocates need a far more sophisticated and critical way of speaking about the heterogeneity of homelessness. 'We need to move past demand led argument, and instead move to reliable, reflective and contextually appropriate measures of outcomes on which to make are arguments' he said. There is an opportunity now to get improvements in data collection and we have to get it right because if we don’t future governments will be more wary about spending in the homelessness area, he argued.

Listen to this Keynote presentation by Dr Guy Johnson.

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Listen to the workshop presentation Age Matters: Examining the Impact of Homelessness by Dr Guy Johnson.

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