The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its data on homelessness from the 2021 Census and the numbers are heartbreaking.
According to ABS’ Estimating Homelessness report, 122,494 people were estimated to be experiencing homelessness on Census night in 2021. This represents 48 people out of 10,000, or — to put it more alarmingly — nearly one in 200
.
Homelessness increased by 6,067 people (5.2 per cent) since the 2016 Census, but the proportion of homeless people relative to the population actually decreased — it used to be 50 people out of 10,000.
It’s also important to note that these stats are from 2021, when we were still well into the throes of the pandemic, which is likely to have affected some of this data.
From the 122,494 people who were homeless on Census night, a little more than half (55.9 per cent) were men, whereas 44.1 per cent were women.
However, the proportion of newly homeless people made up of women has increased by a staggering amount. From the 6,067 people who became homeless between the 2016 and 2021 Census, were women. Jesus fkn Christ.
24,930 (20.4 per cent) of homeless people in the 2021 Census were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, with these figures up 6.4 per cent since the last census. That makes up one in five people experiencing homelessness in Australia, despite First Nations people making up about 3.8 per cent of the population.
Of the 122,494 people experiencing homelessness across Australia on Census night, 17,646 (14.4 per cent) were children aged under 12 years old. They were the second largest age group, with almost a quarter (23.0 per cent) of all the people experiencing homelessness being aged between 12 and 24 years old.
The rate of homelessness for this age group was 71 people per 10,000, in contrast with the age group of aged 55 and over, who experienced homelessness at the rate of 26 people per 10,000.
In terms of states, Northern Territory had the highest rate of homelessness at 564 people per 10,000 in 2021.
This was way more than the other states: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania had rates ranging from 42 to 47 people per 10,000. Western Australia had the lowest rate of homelessness at 37 people per 10,000.
Federal Minister for Housing and Homelessness noted the increase in homelessness in parliament on Wednesday and said it was every Aussie’s responsibility to put a stop to this.
“There is a lot to do to turn this around,” Collins said, per .
“We all need to do more. All of us in this place have a responsibility to make sure that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home.”
I hope by “all of us” she means our parasitic government and leecherous landlords who have turned housing into a commodity rather than a human right.
We’re in the middle of that has become more apocalyptic by the day because people with money can in homes they will never live in, for while the average Aussie — already suffering from a cost of living crisis and stagnant wages — must choose between a decent place to live or putting food on the table.
Things have got to change, and they’ve got to change now — though we’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for years with no answer but our own distant echo.
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