Page 3653 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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Homelessness
MRS GRASSBY: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Deputy Chief Minister in his capacity as Minister for Housing and Community Services. What is the Minister going to do about the high level of homelessness in the ACT, as reported in the Canberra Times on 7 October?
MR LAMONT: I thank Mrs Grassby for her question. Madam Speaker, media reports on this issue have misrepresented the situation. The report that has been referred to is called "Services for the Homeless 1990-92 - a Statistical Profile", and it was released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on 7 October this year. Madam Speaker, the report emphasises in several places that caution should be exercised in using its findings. Without denying that this city is similar to any other city in this country, with similar types of social problems, similar types of issues confronting our youth, the way in which the issue has been represented misconstrues the actual situation.
One of the tragedies of the reporting of this issue was the juxtaposition of the headline that was used, which said that Canberra was the capital of the homeless, and then a graph was used to underpin that story. The graph referred to the usage per head of population of SAAP funded services and clearly demonstrated that per head of population we, frankly, do it better. We provide a greater level of service and more accessible services than anywhere else in this country. Unfortunately, the correlation between the use of the SAAP services and the headline tended to misrepresent the situation. I again emphasise that we, like any other city, do have issues of concern as far as homelessness is concerned.
There are a number of other errors, I believe, contained in that report that need answering. The report, Madam Speaker, attempts to draw conclusions about unmet need and has used turnaway rates as the basis for arriving at a particular suggestion. Here in the ACT, Madam Speaker, the turnaway data has been historically recognised as being skewed by the inclusion of Ainslie Village, which, in 1991, regarded its total population as homeless, and a turnaway policy which excluded those persons who may have had some debt to the village reapplying for accommodation within the village. It is skewed by any increase in the length of stay in services, multiple counting in a small geographic area, inappropriate referrals to service - that is, people with behavioural and mental health problems who are outside the scope of the program - and tertiary students from other centres who are unable to obtain accommodation on campus, as well as the non-participation of some services in the ACT in relation to the data collection for this statistical analysis. Those five things have skewed significantly the appropriateness of drawing the conclusions that were drawn from that data.
Madam Speaker, the Government currently funds 32 SAAP services, including 24 accommodation services, here in the ACT. The Government has taken action to implement the recommendations of the Kelly inquiry into Ainslie Village, and the former turnaway policy of Ainslie Village has ceased. The length of stay in services is determined in part by the availability of exit points for those requiring permanent accommodation.
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