Homeless People’s Problems Grow, By Natasha Bita, July 22, 2010, The Austrilian: “Two in every three homeless people are being turned away from crisis accommodation each night, a damning government report reveals. Three years after the Rudd government pledged to halve homelessness by 2020, crisis services are facing unprecedented levels of demand. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare yesterday reported that 62 per cent of homeless people — including 80 per cent of couples with children — were unable to find a bed on any given day during 2008-09. The homeless crisis is hitting youth the hardest, with 56 per cent of people with a “valid unmet request” for a bed for the night being turned away. A further 37 per cent of the homeless were aged 20 to 44. Ninety per cent of the homeless people were Australian-born, and more than a quarter of them were indigenous. The institute found that 82,300 Australians were seeking emergency accommodation each night, including 13,300 women escaping domestic violence and 24,600 children…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty