“Which Way Home? A New Approach to Homelessness”
Sunday, 01 June 2008 00:00
This submission has was authored by Nick Rushworth, Executive Officer in June 2008 and contains a number of policy recommendations.
The overarching point of Brain Injury Australia’s submission to the Australian Government’s Green Paper “Which Way Home? A New Approach to Homelessness” is to demonstrate that most of the population subgroups that comprise the homeless – people with a mental illness, people with alcohol and other substance abuse problems, people leaving (or at risk of re-entering) prisons or juvenile justice institutions, people fleeing domestic violence etc. - are absolutely commensurate with the constituent populations of Australians with an ABI.
And unless, in whatever strategies derive from this consultation, the Australian Government builds the capacity within all services to the homeless to firstly recognise, and then address an underlying - perhaps undisclosed, perhaps undiagnosed - ABI then every interaction with a homeless Australian simply fiddles at the edge of chronic conditions, and places a person with an ABI at risk of permanent homelessness.
“Which Way Home? A New Approach to Homelessness” cites studies indicating that: up to 75 per cent of Australians aged 18 years and over experiencing homelessness were found to have a mental health concern; the prevalence rates of mental disorder are four times higher among the homeless than in the general population and almost 30 per cent of Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) service users experienced an intensive mental health problem. A person who has experienced an ABI has a four-in-five likelihood of developing a diagnosable mental illness.
Download the publication: Brain Injury Australia: Submission to The Australian Government’s Green Paper “Which Way Home? A New Approach to Homelessness” [Adobe Acrobat PDF - 125.64 KB]
