People experiencing homelessness endure all kinds of stereotypes—most of which rely on the assumption that their situation is somehow their fault. The homeless population is largely made up of people who will solve their own housing issues within a few days.
Alison Smith, an assistant professor in political sciences at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on homelessness, says about 80 per cent of the people who use emergency shelters are there for a short time. When it comes to those who experience chronic homelessness individuals who are in shelters or on the streets for months or years many people, like those who would pass Jess on the street, believe that addiction, or perhaps mental illness, is at the root of the problem.
In fact, says Kira Heineck, executive lead of the Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness , in many cases these issues are the result—not the cause—of the individual being on the streets. Other stereotypes dismiss people experiencing homelessness as unwilling to work.
According to a survey conducted by The Salvation Army, almost 30 per cent of Canadians think all a person experiencing homelessness needs is a good work ethic to get off the streets.
But those who survive on the street are anything but lazy, says Smith. A person experiencing homelessness often travels across the city to get a meal, meet with a social worker, find a place to sleep or pick up their mail. Imagine if that amount of money is spent on providing permanent supportive housing for them. It would significantly alter the state of homelessness in the country.
In , an outbreak of Hepatitis A ravaged California. It particularly hit counties with high populations of unsheltered homeless individuals. Many homeless people struggle with mental health issues of some sort. Most of the time, their mental illness is brought about by their traumatic upbringing. They have been victims of abuse themselves and many of them find it hard to break the cycle. As a result, communities with high rates of homelessness also have high crime rates. When a large number of the population are experiencing homelessness, it brings community life to its breaking point.
It tests the very being of the community — their shared morals and that sense of belonging. Homelessness brings it all into question. Before you know it, the very essence of a community has broken down. We can no longer expect sympathy from the people we live in close quarters with. It fosters uncertainty and constant fear of the people we pass by on the streets. In short, it creates an unhealthy community where people generally distrust each other.
Homelessness brings with it a social stigma. Being homeless can, in turn, make many of these problems even harder to resolve. However, in nearly all cases homelessness is preventable and in every case it can be ended. To find out more about the factors that contribute to homelessness please read:.
There is no national figure for how many people are homeless across the UK. This is because homelessness is recorded differently in each nation, and because many homeless people do not show up in official statistics at all. Crisis carries out an annual study in response to concerns that many people experiencing homelessness are not being accurately recorded in official statistics. On any given night, tens of thousands of families and individuals are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness across Great Britain, this includes over , households in England alone.
The Homelessness Monitor is a longitudinal study providing an independent analysis of the homelessness impacts of recent economic and policy developments in the UK. Rough sleeping is the most visible and dangerous form of homelessness, and when most people think of a homeless person they tend to think of someone sleeping rough on the streets. The longer someone experiences rough sleeping the more likely they are to face challenges around trauma, mental health and drug misuse.
Local authorities have a duty to secure a home for some groups of people. This is often referred to as the main homelessness duty.
Every year, tens of thousands of people apply to their local authority for homelessness assistance. To be legally defined as homeless you must either lack a secure place in which you are entitled to live or not reasonably be able to stay. However, in order to receive assistance under the main homelessness duty, there are further strict criteria that you have to meet. Local authorities may initially provide temporary accommodation to households who might meet these criteria, mainly families with children.
This is why Crisis carries out its annual study on core homelessness. Some people are more at risk of being pushed into homelessness than others. People in low paid jobs, living in poverty and poor quality or insecure housing are more likely to experience homelessness.
Every Australian citizen has the right to vote. In Australia, homeless people continue to face great difficulties in exercising this right. The threat of monetary penalties for failure to vote or failure to register changes of address may also discourage homeless people from enrolling to vote. Recent changes to voting laws, which shorten enrolment deadlines, have made it even more difficult for homeless people to ensure they are validly enrolled to vote.
For more information on these changes, see our webpage on The Right to Vote. These barriers to voting, along with the lack of education about voting, compound the existing social isolation that homeless people face.
Not only is the opportunity to vote a fundamental human right, voting can also provide a sense of empowerment and an important means of participating in society, particularly for those who are marginalised. There are a range of laws in various states of Australia which allow police to direct individuals or groups in and around public areas to move on.
This usually happens where the presence of the person or group is considered by the police to be disorderly, obstructing, threatening or negative in some other way with regard to other members of the public. These laws impact disproportionately on people who use public space more than others, such as young people and homeless people who have no other place to relax or to socialise in a group or alone.
Where the use of these police powers goes beyond what is necessary for protecting the rights of others, the rights to freedom of movement and freedom of association may be breached. Every person has the right to freedom of expression.
This includes the right of all persons to seek, receive and communicate information and ideas of all kinds, either orally, in writing, in the form of art, or through any other chosen media. However, anti-begging laws that exist in most Australian states criminalise this form of expression and undermine the right to freedom of expression. Fining people for such activity aggravates the causes that underlie it and will only encourage people to continue their activities or engage in other criminal activities.
Laws which criminalise essential human behaviours connected to being homeless, such as sleeping, bathing, urinating, or storing belongings in public, may violate the right to freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Courts in the United States have held that these types of laws violate the constitutional right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment because they punish homeless people on the basis of their status, not because of their conduct.
Consequently, homeless people are involuntarily forced to break the law as they have no alternative but to perform these acts in public. A human rights approach acknowledges that homelessness is more than just a housing issue. Addressing homelessness requires a comprehensive and integrated approach that takes into account its many and varied causes and effects. A human rights approach departs from a welfare approach to homelessness by demonstrating that homeless people are not merely objects of charity, seeking help and compassion.
Like all Australians, they are individuals who are entitled under international law to protection and promotion of their human rights. A rights based approach also highlights the need to directly and meaningfully involve people experiencing homelessness in the development of solutions to homelessness. Active and informed participation of homeless persons is likely to result in services which are more effective and relevant to their needs.
A human rights response to homelessness would involve all levels of government committing to and taking concrete and targeted legislative, policy and budgetary steps towards the full and immediate realisation of the human rights of homeless persons. Importantly, since human rights belong to everyone, it is in the interests of the Australian community as a whole to ensure that the rights of all people are respected and protected. Syngajewski, D. O'Leary, J. Koch, D.
Flynn and H. Chung and S. Syngajewski et al, Drummond, , pp OpenElement [21 January ]. Harris, P. Sainsbury and D. Nutbeam eds , Perspectives on Health Inequity. Lynch, , p Lynch and J. Cole, , pp Cole, , p CV ER, 9 th Cir. Wicks , Nos. Multnomah County Rights and Freedoms.
Contents 1. Homelessness is about human rights 2. What is homelessness?
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