Housing and homelessness

This submission sets out Mission Australia's support for the intent of the National Housing and Homelessness Plan Bill 2024 (No. 2). We believe that legislating a statutory basis for the Plan would contribute to ending homelessness and ensuring that all Australians have access to a safe, secure and affordable home.

The Centre for Social Impact, UWA and Mission Australia have developed a prototype Homelessness Solutions Model Framework. The aim of the Framework is to inform how Australian governments should allocate resources to end homelessness. It includes a typology of solutions to homelessness, along with data on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of each solution to draw conclusions about efficient expenditure.

We call for a $500m Prevention Transformation Fund and 1 million social and affordable homes over the next 20 years to transform the homelessness service system to end homelessness. The National Plan must: adopt a systems approach to housing and homelessness; deliver affordable permanent housing for all; boost homelessness prevention measures; maintain homelessness crisis measures; and embed accountability, data collection and performance reporting.

The submission contains recommendations for investing in the housing and homelessness systems to move to a credible path to end homelessness and provide everyone with a safe and affordable home, and the adoption of targets and measures to drive work and monitor progress.

This report was written by the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW and commissioned by Mission Australia, the St Vincent de Paul Society NSW, Social Futures, The Salvation Army Australia, the Australian Red Cross, and the Tenants’ Union of NSW. It shows that action needs to be taken to safeguard regional Australians against homelessness and displacement as severe weather events become more common.