Homelessness Week 2024
Homelessness Week 2024
About Homelessness Week
Homelessness Week is an annual campaign organised by Homelessness Australia with the aim to build community support and government commitment to end homelessness.
It is an opportunity to raise awareness about the causes and impacts of homelessness, to educate communities on how they can make a difference, and to highlight the solutions needed to make a change.
Homelessness in Australia is getting worse every day, which is why the theme for Homelessness Week 2024 is “Homelessness Action Now”.
Understanding homelessness
On any given night, 122,494 people in Australia are experiencing homelessness (ABS Census 2021).
Homelessness can profoundly affect a person’s physical and mental health, their education and employment opportunities, and their ability to fully participate in society. Not having a stable, safe and secure home makes it harder for individuals to find and maintain a job, to stay healthy and maintain relationships, which leads to people becoming socially isolated.
Homelessness Australia states that the main reason people seek homelessness support is because of issues with their housing or finances, which highlights the importance of adequate income support and affordable housing.
Family and domestic violence is the next major reason people seek help, with 24% of people citing violence or family breakdown as their reason for needing support.
Homelessness services are overwhelmed. In 2022-23, homelessness support services assisted 273,600 people (AIHW, Specialist Homelessness Services Annual Report 2022-23). A further 108,000 people sought help but were unable to be assisted due to shortages of staff or accommodation or other services (AIHW 2023).
That’s 295 people a day turned away because services are overstretched. 80% of those being turned away were women and children, many of whom fleeing domestic and family violence.
Action needs to be taken now.
You can find out about homelessness on the Homelessness Australia website.
Get involved this Homelessness Week
This Homelessness Week, Homelessness Australia is calling for the changes that will have the biggest impact, this includes:
- Increasing social housing to 10% of all housing
- Increasing funding to homelessness support services to meet demand
- Increasing income support payments to at least $80 a day.
Petition to end homelessness
Homelessness Australia, together with Everybody’s Home, has created a petition calling for the 10-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan to set an ambition to end homelessness.
You can share the petition with your networks and promote it on social media to help the action grow so it has more influence with government.
Join the conversation
Help amplify the messages of Homelessness Week and share your stories, thoughts and concerns about homelessness on social media using the hashtag #HW2024.
Support local homelessness services
You can also get involved with your local homelessness support services, like the EMC.
Find out how you can support our mission to address issues faced by people who are experiencing homelessness, at risk of experiencing homelessness, or experiencing social isolation.
Homelessness Week lunch for guests
Our friends from HelpingACT are preparing a special Feel Good Feed lunch for EMC guests for Homelessness Week, on Monday 5 August at midday. All guests are invited to attend. Please chat to our team if you have any questions.
