Housing
19 Feb 2010
Abbott Advises Homeless People To Get A Home
How out of touch with reality can a politician be? Very, as Tony Abbott's comments about homelessness being a "choice" have demonstrated, writes Stephen Nash
Last week Tony Abbott repeated one of the grand old myths of homelessness policy when he stated that homelessness is a "choice".
Speaking at the Catholic Social Services Australia national conference, he was answering a question from Sacred Heart Mission chief executive Michael Perusco about whether the Opposition would support the Federal Government’s target to reduce homelessness by 50 per cent by 2020 as his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull had done.
The answer was "no".
The suggestion that homelessness is a lifestyle choice is not new. It is typically used to explain why programs have failed or why policy makers are not willing to do more.
But for those of us who provide housing and support services to individuals and families on a daily basis, the idea of homelessness as a choice goes against everything we know and see.
To understand why it makes no sense, just ask yourself what it really means to be homeless. What is it that people are actually "choosing"? Homelessness puts people in dangerous situations where they often become victims of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Exploitation is common, stability is lost, health deteriorates, job chances shrink, connections with social networks are broken and opportunities of every kind evaporate.
People do not live like this if they can avoid it. There are more than 100,000 Australians who endure the trauma of not having a home on any given night. To understand them properly we need to acknowledge the fine line between stable housing and no housing, and how easily ordinary people can lose their grip on home in an increasingly unaffordable housing market.
There are many reasons why individuals and families become homeless. They usually relate to a severe crisis or chronic factors followed by the failure of prevention services and the absence of alternative housing options.
In the same way, once homeless, people do not choose to remain homeless or to go through multiple episodes of homelessness. "Choice" in this context might mean homelessness on one hand versus an offer of unsafe, temporary or inappropriate accommodation. That might be yet another temporary bed, or accommodation in a dangerous environment that would worsen a health condition. A person might take up an offer of accommodation or housing initially, but without enough support of the right kind they may become homeless again. The choice a person may be offered might mean that after spending years on a waiting list they are expected to move away from family, friends, community, work and the other things that give our lives meaning.
None of these situations offer real choices.
Contrast this with another kind of choice. Imagine that a person experiencing homelessness is offered fast access to affordable high-quality housing in an area close to family, friends, employment, education, shops, entertainment and services. This person is identified as having particular support needs and is immediately linked into services to help them settle into their new housing, deal with their challenges and to identify and start planning for a future that involves new friendships, community connections, education and getting a job. The support they receive is tailored, flexible and is provided for as long as they need it.
This second example is what real choice looks like.
Safe and stable housing is the foundation but it must be accompanied with ongoing support services so people can build a better life for themselves. Challenges like past violence or abuse, mental or physical health issues, or extreme social isolation, are major barriers to a person establishing and sustaining a viable tenancy.
The real story hiding underneath the "choice" furphy is that our society is failing to provide the housing and support people need to escape from homelessness and be in a position to make empowered choices for themselves and their families.
At the core of this is Australia’s lack of affordable housing. In 2008 The National Housing Supply Council reported "the need for an additional 251,000 rental dwellings affordable and available for lower income households" based on the 2006 Census.
To address this lack, the Nation Building Program and the National Rental Affordability Scheme launched by the Rudd Government will create many new homes, but we are yet to see guarantees that most of these will be accessible to people leaving homelessness. We are also yet to see a consistent system where all public and community housing offers are linked in with relevant support services for those who need them.
With this scheme the federal and state governments have shown historic leadership on the issue and I believe that the Prime Minister is capable of achieving his target of a 50 per cent reduction in homelessness by 2020 but it will require new policies and approaches, including state and national affordable housing strategies and a more coordinated approach to planning for future needs. The tools for success in this key national challenge are well known and understood. Nevertheless, questions remain around resourcing and how a focus on long-term housing outcomes and evidence will be put into practice.
Right now, a political debate over homelessness as a lifestyle choice is a distraction that nobody needs, least of all the 100,000 plus Australians without a safe and stable home. What we need from both sides of politics is a bi-partisan commitment to aligning every available policy mechanism, including those in the tax system, against homelessness to ensure that the 2020 targets are met.
In my 20 years working with people in housing crisis, I have not met a single person who I would describe as having chosen homelessness. When given a real choice between housing plus support or homelessness, people choose a better life every time.
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As a university lecturer I used to try to spot the couch surfer and see if we could improve their housing situation before week 10 of semester. I estimated that there was at least 1 couch surfer in every 35 students. Couch surfers are amongst the hidden homeless.
No doubt, Mr. Abbott considers homelessness to be a “precious gift” that should not be given away lightly.
Of course, the Mad Monk is totally out of touch with the age. But he is in touch with the ultra conservative Base of the Liberal and National parties. They are also living in a world long gone, but their echoes remain among us, to bedevil us all.
Also, the Corporate Media owned by either the once-upon-a-time Dirty Digger, now a very Far Right backer in Australia and America; and the rest, now owned by mainly US Hedge Funds, hardly ‘small l’ liberal in ANY sense are giving him a dream run. No one is asking the really hard questions, (in fact, they are avoiding them like the Plague) and Krudd has helped them immeasurably by dropping every ball for 12 months, while he played silly little political gamesmanship with Malcolm Turnbull, and forgot about trying to sell his policies. Incompetent?
Peter Harcher’s article in today’s Fairfax Press is very relevant.
Talk-back radio is always on the Mad Monk side, because he is good for business.
He can make utterly stupid comments and get away with them, much as Barnaby Joyce has been able to, because the Corp. Media is backing the Conservative agenda.
Looking at what is happening here and in the USA, as Peter Harcher has noted, one can see the glaring similarities.
The Machiavelli of US Politics, Karl Rove, once called George W. Bush’s brain, some years ago came to Australia for a time to train Liberal Party apparatchiks.
His Australian disciples even went to Britain to train the Tories over there, but fell short of success in that instance. I am thinking that communications and links between the Mad Monk people and this man are still very strong. The ‘disciples’ are still working within and for the Liberals.
Until Krudd takes a pull at himself, and regains the momentum, he, like Obama, is going to suffer badly at the hands of the ‘nasties’. Imagine the mad Monk as Australian PM, and Sarah Palin as the US President! Not impossible, on present trends.
The non-stop attacks on Peter Garrett, using highly intemperate language, often totally at variance with facts, are another sign of the Karl Rove education.
Seems that any Labor person smart enough to combat this agenda has been sidelined or sacked or disposed of by Krudd, and he is left with lots of ‘yes-men and women’, all totally incapable of showing good fight, or even of knowing the enemy.
Poor fellow, My country!
Do teenagers count as people? Surely you have met may more than I have (on public transport, at the Food Co-op, sleeping rough at the Aboriginal tent embassy) who claim they cannot stay with their parents for a variety of fabricated reasons (“abuse” being the fashionable one just now). I hate to be defending the Mad Monk, but these kids are certainly choosing homelessness over living at home by their parents’ rules.
Having spent a fair amount of time in the villages of India I can tell you the majority of the world’s population would be able to house themselves and their families (and feed and clothe them) for a fraction of the dole, or indeed for a fraction of what the hapless working poor here in Australia shell out in taxes to support those who choose not to work.
The Mad Monk will appeal, not just to rabid conservatives and the rich, but to working class people who believe in personal responsibility and not victimhood entitlement.
Mr Abbott is an extremely fortunate man. No doubt he has made the right choices and worked hard to attain the position he currently enjoys.
But hard work and making the right choices do not necessarily result in success in life. Many people work hard and choose well, but do not achieve success; while some ‘make it’ by sheer good luck, often despite themselves.
However people, like Mr Abbott, who have worked hard and made the right choices all-too-often think that their success in life is the result of their own actions, inferring that they themselves deserve all the credit for their good fortune. Its called determinism and betrays a very nasty, atheistic worldview.
Mr Abbott as a self-professed Christian should perhaps examine his life and the causes of his good fortune - he might find reason to re-assess his perspective and show a little more goodwill towards those under him in the food chain.
This isn’t a jungle we live in. Its supposed to be a human civilisation.
If there are any people who have made the choice to be homeless - there may be some, endless travellers, following the work - I imagine they will be careful not to attract attention.
For anyone with a family, with a job, with a structure to their life dependant on being in the same address every night, it is ridiculous to suggest they would choose to be homeless. This sounds like upper class Victorian England, which goes well with the Mad Monk, as both the upper class and monasteries maintained separation from the common people.
grumpyoldman2
I did not hear first hand what Tony Abbott said in this regard but I think I can read between the lines of how it has been reported. There certainly are people out there in the 100,000 homeless who made poor choices before becoming one. There are also many who circumstances left in the position of not being able to make and achieve the right choice. These now need society’s help.
Those who made the wrong choices way before the choice of homelessnes confronted them are in the position to latch onto whatever society does for the unfortunates and in Australian language bludge on it. I mean the school kids who opt out of school at the first opportunity, or who don’t remain in school for that extra year are making the type of choice that Tony abbott was referring to. Then there are the people who choose to live on the dole rather than get a job, they make that choice and it will place them in the queue for homelessness. And the alcoholics who can’t get above their problem and choose to continue drinking as against the abstinence that their illness requires, all joining the queue. So it goes, many have the choice but can’t get the choice right. But am I my brother’s keeper?
Nice point, GOman2!
Perhaps social welfare should only be rolled out in recognised, official catastrophes, like the Great Depression, Black Saturday, or so on…..
‘Stralia’d be a hell of a rough place without Centrelink, though.
LIke Latham before him, with every public utterance Abbott edges further outwards on a very lonely limb.
The blueprint for NEW LIBERAL’s (rather the ULTRA RIGHT) policy will be the child’s game of “Snakes and Ladders”. He wil be able to balance the Budget by privatizing Public Hospitals as surely illness is just another choice or vice.
But the serious Qustion of Homelessness is just another challenge where Rudd has failed. Like Support for the Aged, Disabled or Mentally ill.
For every new dollar spent on physical infrastructure Rudd should have been spending a new dollar on Social Infrastructure. That is, of course, if this was a Labor government!
That’s why Tony is such entertainment and also as far as I am concerned unelectable: he blurts out his views in such a tragic-comical manner.
The vast majority of people do not choose homelessness as a lifestyle. As has already been pointed out, there is insufficient affordable housing. Intellectually handicapped homeless people need hostel accommodation where someone guides and leads them - they are like children.
However, there are some who choose this lifestyle. They “exit” from society and live within their small group or by themselves. Years ago there was a current affairs programme of a man wandering around Australia. He had done that for decades, proudly not on social security benefits but feeding and clothing himself from what others discarded. His family desparately wanted him back, but he could and would not settle down.
I have heard of similar stories where people and organisations with goodwill tried to help only to be knocked back.
Depressingly, a large percentage of homeless people in the large US cities have jobs. Depressing because not only is homelessness an awful experience in itself but also because just having a job can’t get many people out of poverty. This group of homeless people work at Wal Mart or Burger King then go back to their cars or refuges for the night. But they don’t have the money even for basic rental accommodation. And Australia may go the same way under a Coalition industrial relations regime.
Abbott’s attitude towards homeless people is one of the more disgusting of his ignorant views. What next? Do people “choose” to be victims of crime? Do they “choose” sexual harassment? Maybe I shouldn’t ask those questions because I don’t want Abbott to answer them.
If homelessness is made through ‘choice’, then that is because the alternatives are either more dangerous, horrendous or soul destroying.
Abbott’s comments are both insensitive and inappropriate for a potential leader of our nation.
He should be made aware of the fact that some people are either unemployable through inadequate education, or have mental and physical conditions that prevent them from obtaining further education or jobs.
These people need permanent welfare and community support - and a proper home should be apart of this government service provision.
Hey ‘aussiegreg’, I work with teenagers who have dysfunctional family environments, leading them to choose the streets rather than being at home with violent, drunk/drugged, abusive and hopeless parents.
Perhaps you should drop in to a youth center some time and tell them how, “‘abuse’ being the fashionable one just now”, is a poor excuse for “choosing homelessness over living at home by their parents’ rules.”
I’m sorry if couldn’t stop them dropping you mate, but we are trying our best to make them realise violence is not the answer.
You see ‘aussiegreg’, when these young people experience violence at home on a daily basis and then idolise violent Hollywood movies and the like, trying to get them to avoid abusing themselves and others is tough.
As for comparing the cost of living in India to Sydney, you really need to think about that one too mate. (:
Perhaps you could come and tell them how to manage better on the ‘dole’, if they can get it. It’s called Youth Allowance for them, and it’s a pittance, and it’s often hard for them to get.
p.s. please bring Tony Abbot with you, his boxing skills may come in handy.
My apologies, Wonky Funkfart, I didn’t intend my questioning of an absolute statement that no-one was ever homeless by choice to be taken as advocating that every homeless person was, certainly not on the strength of having met just four teenagers who seemed to me to be fibbing about how bad things were at home.
I don’t doubt there are many real victims (although I’m sure the fakers would be just as prone to violence if they were called on it by me) and I’m sure you do great work on their behalf.
Not sure it’s a good idea to mention the dole, though, since we all know plenty of dole-bludgers. In fact one of the Food Co-op’s strongest sources of volunteer labour and backyard vegetables was one of the most affluent households I have ever known, and all six members on the dole!
They were also farming their group house’s huge backyard for vegies and eggs which they bartered for almost all the other things they needed, their pooled dole money paying the rent and utilities and buying state-of-the-art appliances. That’s the kind of luxury most of the world can only dream of (and in India incomes are equally a fraction of those in Sydney, so the comparison holds — it’s about thrift and self-sacrifice, values I hope you are also able to instill in your teenage charges alongside non-violence).
I’m sure Tony Abbott would not be willing to act as my bodyguard anywhere, as his political class thinks of me as the ultimate in loony lefties — I just retain an old lefty’s commitment to truth.
The inability of individuals such as Tony Abbott to have a capacity to step aside from their own world views for a time, “imagine” what others can/ can’t do/ can know/ don’t know/ may be aware of/ have/ don’t have / feel is possible (etc.) on a day to day basis is so incredibly limited, I should not be surprised when they are still stupid enough to allow this to be reflected in their comments and dialogue with others.
So different is homelessness and desperation, despair, dejection, compared to their own experiences and lifestyles, that it is no surprise that this is reflected all the way through construction of policy & procedure, systems and so-called solutions.
I am old enough to recall slow, even legislated, efforts to improve use of language and paradigm disruption as a cultural change tool for EEO, SH, etc., but the plight of many poorer individuals (not offering any corporate return on investment related to change) just don’t receive that sort of “thinking”.
Karen Dempster - Creating Change