Analysing Homelessness In Australia

Analysing Homelessness In Australia Over the past few decades, mechanisms of social exclusion and social control have made it increasingly hard for Australia’s homeless. Many texts discuss the issue of defining homelessness and it is now widely accepted there are several different kinds. Here, I will be talking primarily about Primary homelessness, which is also known as ‘sleeping rough’, where people sleep in cars, parks or other public spaces (Which Way Home? 2008: 18). On average around 105,000 people are homeless in Australia each night and around 15% of these are rough sleeper (The Road Home 2008: 3). The majority of homeless people list financial difficulty, domestic violence, family breakdown or substance abuse as the main causes of their homeless status (Which Way Home? 2008: 20). Homelessness remains a particular problem among Australia’s Indigenous people, who are over represented in their use of homeless services in all states and territories (Which Way Home? 2008: 20). While home lessness itself is not illegal in Australia, many acts committed by the homeless are, such as public urination, public drunkenness and the possession of illegal drugs. Criminalization of the homeless occurs because these people lack the private space in which to engage in these behaviours. Governments assume that by removing the homeless from public spaces that they are reducing crime and creating safe streets for the law abiding public. However, as illustrated above, the crimes the homeless commit do not generally hurt others or damage property. They are breaking specific laws that have been created by the government which are enforced to exclude certain groups of society from specific public spaces, notably the spaces that the wealthy inhabit. Criminalizing the homeless for behavior that is unavoidable in their situation is not simply poor public policy; it also places unnecessary stress on the criminal justice system. Criminalizing the homeless also leaves the law enforcement off icials to deal with related issues, such as issues such as mental illness and alcoholism (citation). Alcoholism is an issue that is common among the homeless population and it is a condition that often intensifies as a result of being homeless. Criminalizing the homeless for being drunk on the streets does not treat the problem, nor does it assist the police in ‘cleaning up the streets’. It is often found is that homeless alcoholics use rehabilitation centre’s as shelter services, but have little intention of treating their addiction (Wilhite 1992: 190). This indicates that the provision of suitable housing is a prerequisite to treating alcoholism. Once suitably housed, alcoholics have an increased chance of using alcohol rehabilitation services effectively. However, as suitable housing becomes increasingly scarce, the homeless are released from the justice system and back on to the street, where the cycle is then repeated. Homelessness has also increased signifi cantly among the mentally ill in recent decades. This has been attributed to discontinuity in mental health services where individuals are transferred from an institutional to community living (Conover et al. 1997: 256). This burden of care has shifted from mental hospitals to the community; however, development of housing and community services has not kept up with the demand (Greenblatt 1992: 49). The outcome here is that many of Australia’s mentally ill have ended up are end up on the streets and are criminalized for behaviour’s that are symptoms of their illness. Once again, nobody benefits from the existing system. Our mentally ill are left untreated and our criminal justice system gets increasingly clogged with cases of minor offences that have harmed no one.