Tag Archives: Australia

Salvation Army Homelessness Report

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The Salvation Army just released a report on their recent research into homeless in Australia. The study found the following:

  •   155 Salvation Army homelessness services operate across Australia.
  •  More than 310,000 accommodation days were provided between 1 July 2012 and 31 December 2012
  •  53% of women accessing Salvation Army SHS women’s services identified domestic and family violence as their main presenting issue.
  • 44% of clients accessing Salvation Army SHS services identified housing affordability or housing crisis as their main presenting issue.
  • One in five (20%) of clients accessing Salvation Army SHS services who provided information on their mental health have been diagnosed with a mental health issue.
  • One out of every eight clients who accesses all Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) in Australia accesses a Salvation Army service.
  • 17% of Salvation Army clients identified financial difficulty as their main presenting issue.
  • 25% of clients accessing Salvation Army homelessness services have been homeless for more than six months.
  • Over 80% of Salvation Army SHS clients identified government support payments as their main source of income.

Australians in 2013: happy, confident – but not as friendly as we used to be

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Australians in 2013: happy, confident – but not as friendly as we used to be
img-thingThis year, 28% of us disagreed with the proposition that “accepting migrants from many different countries makes Australia stronger”; and 25% admitted to having “negative feelings” to migrants from the Middle East and Lebanon in particular. Markus takes this to be code for Muslim.

Intolerant Australia appears to be becoming more intolerant. Markus reports a sharp rise in discrimination. The 2013 survey revealed 40% or more of all new arrivals from Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, China and Hong Kong have experienced discrimination because of their colour, race or religion.

Markus is loth to tie this deteriorating situation directly to the politics of the boats. He found our attitudes to asylum seekers have further hardened in the past year: 33% of us now want all refugee boats turned back and only 18% support our treaty obligations to give refugees arriving by boat permanent residence in this country.

Australia is rich…?

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Australia is rich and on top of the world: is it time to pop the champers? img-thing How rich? Well, we are a mere 0.36% of the world’s adult population but we account for 3.78% of the world’s top 1% wealthiest. The only nation with a more lopsided share of the top 1% is Switzerland, whose 0.13% of the world’s population still sees them with 1.63% of the richest 1%. How did we earn such wealth? Mostly it has come about through home ownership. Credit Suisse notes that our wealth is “heavily skewed towards real assets”, which amount on average to US$294,100 or about 59% of total assets. This average level of real assets is second only to Norway. It suggests a situation open to risks of inequality, as those on poorer incomes are shut out of the wealth-generating housing market, and a danger that our wealth could collapse if house prices fall. ...But one group left out were those on Newstart. Since the mid 1990s Newstart has gone from just below 50% of the median household income to now around 30% – well below poverty level... But while most of our issues are decidedly “first world problems”, let us not think that everyone is enjoying this great increase in wealth..
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How Big is a House?

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How big is your house?  Is it big enough? Is there an optimum amount of floor space per person? Do you have any spare rooms?
Given that lack of housing is a major factor in homelessness and that on any given day in Australia 1/2 the people seeking accommodation are turned away, maybe it’s time we rethought how big our houses are.

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Melbourne the most liveable city?

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For 3 years in a row Melbourne has been voted the most liveable city.  Out of 140 cities, Melbourne  was given perfect scores for health care, education and infrastructure.

For Victoria’s 23,299 homeless I’m not sure if this would be true for them.  One in three of those are children under the age of 12.  And almost half were under the age of 25.  (2006 census)

For more info see : It takes a home