From here you can access a range of reports, data sets, and other information on homelessness statistics in Australia produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Census of Population and Housing
The national Census of Population and Housing is taken every 5 years. It is the largest statistical collection undertaken by the ABS. the Census aims to count every person in Australia and is important for the planning of vital services to the community, including services used by people experiencing homelessness.
The 1996 Census was the first census to target Australia’s homeless population with a special enumeration strategy. this strategy was aimed to not only maximise the coverage of the Australian population but also to provide information from the Census to policy makers and service deliverers on the number and characteristics of homeless people. The ABS has continued to have a special enumeration strategy for the homeless population for subsequent Censuses.
In the 2011 Census there was a particular focus on correctly enumerating ‘no usual address’ for couch surfers, in addition to the special enumeration strategies for homeless people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In the lead-up to the 2011 Census, the ABS liaised with state/territory organisations in order to gain their assistance in correctly identifying accommodation likely to cater for the homeless. Prior to Census Night, ABS staff from regional offices contacted groups providing services for the homeless to identify possible sites where homeless people were likely to be located. Where possible, members of the homeless community were to be engaged to enumerate ‘difficult’ areas where significant numbers of homeless people were likely to spend Census Night.
However the ABS has a long history of collecting information relevant to identifying homeless people in the Census. In the 1933 and 1947 Censuses, a question was asked for the ‘number of persons (if any) who slept out throughout the year on verandahs (not enclosed sleep-outs)’. In 1986, a dwelling structure category ‘Improvised dwelling’ was provided on the form for the collector to mark. This category was changed to ‘Improvised home, campers out’ in 1991 but there was no distinction between homeless people and those who were camping (such as on holiday).
Questions about the usual residence where a person usually lives provides an indication on homelessness, however from 1976 until 1991, those who had no usual address were instructed to tick their usual address as ‘this address’. They were classified as having their place of enumeration on Census as their usual address. Since then, the form has an instruction to write ‘none’ if a person does not have a usual address for 6 months or more in the Census year.
From 1976 to 1991, collectors were instructed to seek out all people camping or sleeping out by visiting ‘any places in your Collection District (CD) on Census night where it is likely that persons may be sleeping out, e.g camping areas, park benches, derelict buildings etc’. They were instructed if they found such a person to issue a household form and help them fill it out on the spot. They were assigned to a non-private dwelling type ‘campers out’. However some collectors may not have followed this instruction if they did not believe there were people in their area, or for fear of their own safety. Prior to 1996, some Divisional managers undertook additional measures to enumerate the homeless such as providing refreshments.
Chris Chamberlain, then Head of Sociology, Monash University, authored the 1999 ABS Occasional paper Counting the Homeless, Implications for Policy Development (ABS cat. no. 2041.0) in which the 1996 Census was used to estimate the number of people who were homeless on Census night. “The purpose of the study was to see whether it was possible to produce a credible estimate of the homeless population using ABS Census data. It was proved possible.”
Professors Chris Chamberlain (Swinburne University) and David MacKenzie (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University) have since produced their Counting the Homeless (CTH) (ABS cat. no. 2050.0) reports after each of the 2001 and 2006 Censuses. Their ground breaking work was innovative in finding ways to utilise the Census as a source for constructing elements of a count of the homeless – an exercise undertaken to some extent in some other countries, but not covering the range of homeless circumstances that Chamberlain and MacKenzie attempted.
The ABS initiated the methodological review of Counting the Homeless (ABS cat. no. 2050.0) by engaging with a range of stakeholders, including researchers and the homelessness services sector, and with the advice of a Steering Committee comprising representatives from the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and from three states (New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia) represented on the inter-jurisdictional Housing and Homelessness Information Management Group (reporting to the Housing Ministers’ Advisory Committee).
Following an initial review workshop on 21 October 2009, with Professors Chamberlain and MacKenzie, and representatives from Homelessness Australia, as well as from Commonwealth, state/territory and local government organisations, the nature of the ABS’s concerns with the Counting the Homeless, 2006 methodology were outlined in Issues in estimating the number of homeless in Australia: A paper to inform a review of Counting the Homeless methodology. This was made publicly available in October 2009, and submissions were sought. Submissions were received from government organisations, academics and eight homelessness services sector organisations. Workshops to progress the review, which involved Professors Chamberlain and MacKenzie, were held in May 2010 and October 2010.
The ABS’s initial findings from the methodological review were published on 31 March 2011 in the Discussion Paper: Methodological Review of Counting the Homeless, 2006 (ABS cat. no. 2050.0.55.001). That Discussion Paper announced a public submissions process and a series of advertised public forums in each capital city. This paper noted the importance of the issue of homelessness for society and governments, and the need for quality data for decision making purposes, particularly for measuring change over time. In that context, the Discussion Paper described a methodology that had been previously used, and proposed a range of methodological changes that would be needed before consistent, transparent and repeatable official estimates could be made of the number of people enumerated in the Census who were likely to have been homeless on Census night.
In August 2011, the ABS released a follow up Position Paper outlining findings from the consultation process initiated by the March Discussion Paper and providing the future directions for the ABS broad work program in homelessness measurement. This paper outlined that the ABS would convene a Homelessness Statistics Reference Group with members from the sector, from academia, and from government to advise the ABS on the development, collection, compilation, production and dissemination of robust statistics for use in analysing, understanding and reporting on homelessness in Australia. It also outlined the potential use of several ABS household surveys to report on past periods of homelessness, and the proposal to investigate the 5% Statistical Longitudinal Census Dataset to undertake longitudinal analysis of the circumstances of those who have been identified as likely to be homeless.
The ABS will release official estimates of homelessness from the Census for 2001 and 2006 in mid-2012. Estimates from the 2011 Census will be published in mid November 2012.
For more information visit:
Counting the Homeless, Implications for Policy Development 1996
Discussion Paper: Methodological Review of Counting the Homeless, 2006
Position Paper: ABS Review of Counting the Homeless Methodology, August 2011
Census Working Paper 97/1 1996 Census: Homeless Enumeration Strategy (Evaluation of the Field Objective)
How Australia Takes a Census 2011
The last Census of Population and Housing was conducted on Tuesday 9th August 2011.
Below are links to a fact sheet and flyer about the Census:
Homeless Fact Sheet [PDF 478KB]
Youth Homelessness Flyer [PDF 184KB]
Homeless Collector Fact Sheet [PDF 759KB]