Trends in homelessness in Western Australia

The goal of ending homelessness in Western Australia

The goal of the Western Australian Alliance Strategy to End Homelessness (WAAEH) is to end homelessness in Western Australia. An intermediate target of the WAAEH is to reduce the overall rate of homelessness by half over ten years (from 2018).

The WAAEH Strategy to End Homelessness includes additional targets to:

• Eliminate the gap between the rate of homelessness for Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people.
• End chronic homelessness including chronic rough sleeping.
• Ensure that those supported by homelessness services have their needs met.

Homelessness data

There are three main sources of data on homelessness in Western Australia. 

The first source of homelessness data is a service-based measure using information from the Specialist Homelessness Services Collection (SHSC) of government-funded Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS). The SHS data provides a rich overview of those receiving support from SHS agencies either because they were homeless or at risk of homelessness. The SHS data do not capture those receiving support from non-SHS agencies and those not seeking any form of support at all. 

The second source of data on homelessness comes from the Australian Census. The Census collects information on five operational groups on Census night. These groups are:

• people living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out (ie those ‘sleeping rough’)
• people living in supported accommodation for the homeless
• people staying temporarily with other households
• people living in boarding houses
• people in other temporary lodgings
• people living in ‘severely’ crowded dwellings.

The third source of information on homelessness in Western Australia is provided in the Zero Project by-name list dashboard.

Specialist Homelessness Services

Figure 1 presents information on the number of SHS clients and the SHS rate per 10,000 estimated resident population over the period 2019-20 to 2023-24. Figures 2 and 3 break down the annual data by whether SHS clients were homeless on entry into SHS support or at risk of homelessness on entry.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

On the basis of SHS estimates, there has been little progress in the goal of ending homelessness in Western Australia recent years.

The number of clients accessing Western Australia’s SHS per 10,000 resident population has fallen marginally over the last five years to 86.7 per 10,000 persons in 2023-24 (Figure 1). 

Figures 2 and 3 provide a breakdown of the annual SHS data by whether clients were experiencing homeless or at risk of homelessness on entry. This breakdown shows that there has been a slight increase in the number of clients who are experiencing homelessness on entry into SHS support due to an increase in the number of men entering SHS support who were homeless on entry. At the same time, there has been a decline in the number of SHS clients entering support who are at risk of homelessness on entry with the decline led by a decline in men entering SHS agencies at risk of homelessness.

Figures 4 and 5 present monthly estimates of SHS clients broken down by gender between July 2017 and September 2024, by whether SHS clients were homeless on entry (Figure 4) or at risk of homelessness (Figure 5).

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 4 confirms that the rise in SHS homeless on entry clients evident in the first half of 2023, tapered off from August 2023 and through to December 2023, increasing again in 2024. Further, compared to a year earlier (i.e., September 2023), the number of clients who were homeless on entry has increased (i.e., in September 2024, the latest period for which we have monthly data). While there is evident volatility in the monthly series for SHS clients entering services at risk of homelessness, the overall trend is for little change in the numbers.

There was a drop in both clients who were homeless and clients at risk of homelessness accessing SHS in April 2020, coinciding with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and likely attributed to nation-wide lockdown measures. By December 2020, the numbers of both client groups increased to approximately pre-pandemic levels and a further increase in the following years occurs, with the highest level in August 2023 for those who were homeless on entry and March 2023 for those at risk of homelessness. The monthly series also shows that among male clients, a higher proportion are homeless compared to female clients (i.e., 1,506/2,532; 59.5% vs 2,183/5,025; 43.4%) (Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 6 presents the housing tenure outcomes for those with closed support periods who were experiencing homelessness on entry to SHS support.

Figure 6

As can be seen in Figure 6, the majority of SHS clients completed their support period in the same homelessness position that they began their support period. In other words, the majority started and ended their support period still homeless and in the same homelessness position (e.g., two thirds of those rough sleeping in the beginning of the support period remained rough sleeping at the end). 

In the case of those at risk of homelessness (Figure 7), the very low proportion of clients that move from housing to homelessness and remain in the same permanent housing state is a very positive outcome, showing that the vast majority of SHS clients at risk of homelessness at the beginning of the support period remained housed through their support period.

The WAAEH target of rapidly transitioning all those experiencing homelessness to permanent housing is largely not being met while that of retaining people in housing who are at risk of homelessness is largely being met.

The proportion of SHS clients that live in regional Western Australia has slightly decreased in 2023-24 (48.7%) compared to 2022-23 (51.0%). The 2028 target for Figure 8 is to eliminate this over-representation, such that the rate of regional homelessness is the same as the rate of people living in regional WA (20.6%).

Figure 9 presents the number of SHS clients who identified as Indigenous and non-Indigenous for each year between 2019-20 and 2023-24. As can be seen in Figure 9, the number of Indigenous clients increased slightly in 2023-24 (N = 12,385) compared to 2022-23 (N = 12,261).

The WAAEH target of reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal people in homelessness is not currently being met.

A target of the WAAEH is that those experiencing and exiting homelessness have their needs met and goals addressed. 

Figure 10 presents results on the proportion of SHS clients that end their support period with their immediate case management needs or goals met. Less than half SHS clients have their needs met on exit. However, there was a slight decrease in the proportion of clients whose needs were met in the latest 2023-24 reporting period. 41.9% of all individuals accessing Specialist Homelessness Services ended their support periods with their immediate needs and goals met in 2023-24 compared to 43.4% in 2023-24. 

There is a need for greater and sustained focus on understanding and addressing the complex needs of Specialist Homelessness Services clients.

Census estimates of homelessness

The WAAEH released its strategy to end homelessness in 2018 following the release of the 2016 Census estimates of homelessness.

The 2016 Census homelessness estimates thus provided a baseline for progress in achieving the targets of the WAAEH. In 2016, 36.4 per 10,000 Western Australians were homeless according to the Census. To achieve the target of halving the rate of homelessness in a decade, this rate needs to decrease to 18.2 persons per 10,000 by 2028. However, in the 2021 census, the homelessness rate rose slightly to 36.6 per 10,000 (Figure 11).

As can be seen in Figure 12, both the number and rate per 10,000 persons who were living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out (i.e., rough sleeping) on census night almost doubled between 2016 (N = 1,083; 4.4 persons per 10,000) and 2021 (N = 2,315; 8.7 persons per 10,000).

In the 2021 Census, rough sleeping was the second most common form of homelessness in Western Australia, second to severely overcrowded dwellings (Figure 13).

Western Australia is off-track at present, on the basis of Census data, to achieve the WAAEH Ending Homelessness 10-year target and ensuring that no individual or family will sleep rough or stay in supported accommodation for more than five nights.

There is a significant over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Western Australian homeless population. While making up only 3.3% of the general population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders represented 35% of the homeless population at the 2021 Census (ABS, 2021). Between 2011 and 2016, there was a substantial decrease in the overall rate of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander homelessness. However, the Indigenous homelessness rate increased in 2021, from 344.6 persons per 10,000 to 380.5 persons per 10,000. This rate of increase needs to not only be reversed, but dramatically decreased to achieve the goal of eliminating the over-representation of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander homelessness in WA. (Figure 14).

The rate of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander homelessness living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out (i.e., rough-sleeping) drastically increased from 2016 to 2021, from 48.8 per 10,000 to 100.7 per 10,000. Since this is reflective of the most extreme form of homelessness, a greater focus is required to empower Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people within this category to gain secure housing (Figure 15).