Amplify Insights: Housing Affordability and Homelessness

This report assembles the evidence, from official statistics, academic research, and other publicly available information about the lived experience of homelessness and housing affordability in Australia. It aims to build on previous work by bringing together the evidence, amplifying the insights into housing affordability and homelessness challenges in Australia and the range of possibilities available to us to reduce homelessness. Homelessness is not just rooflessness. We have seen the greatest increases in homelessness among people living in severely overcrowded dwellings; thus making homelessness increasingly hidden. While older people have a lower prevalence of homelessness (1 in 300) than the rest of the general population, alarmingly, over a decade they experienced the fastest growing rate of homelessness: 54 per cent for 55‐64‐year‐olds and 59 per cent for 65‐74‐year‐olds (2006‐2016).