Guy Johnson

Homelessness and Substance Abuse: Which Comes First?

Abstract The present paper uses a social selection and social adaptation framework to investigate whether problematic substance use normally precedes or follows homelessness. Clarifying temporal order is important for policy and program design. The paper uses information from a large dataset (n=4,291) gathered at two services in Melbourne, supplemented by 65 indepth interviews. We found that 43% of the sample had substance abuse problems. Of these people, one-third had substance abuse problems before they became homeless and two-thirds developed these problems after they became homeless. We also found that young people were more at risk of developing substance abuse problems after becoming homeless than older people and that most people with substance abuse issues remain homeless for 12 months or longer. The paper concludes with three policy recommendations.

Pathways into adult homelessness

This article uses information from a large administrative database (N = 3941) to outline five ideal typical pathways into adult homelessness. The pathways are called ‘housing crisis’, ‘family breakdown’, ‘substance abuse’, ‘mental health’ and ‘youth to adult’. Then we explain why people on some pathways remain homeless for longer than others. People on a housing crisis or family breakdown pathway do not form strong friendships in the homeless subculture or accept homelessness as a way of life. Their homelessness is shorter. In contrast, people on the substance abuse and youth to adult pathways often become involved in the homeless subculture and engage in social practices that make it difficult to exit from homelessness. Their homelessness is longer. People on the mental health pathway also experience long-term homelessness, but they do not endorse homelessness as a way of life. They remain homeless because they have few exit options.

Introducing ‘Journeys Home’

Homelessness, despite being a major social policy issue in Australia, is an area that is not well served by data. Most sorely lacking is any large-scale panel study that follows a broad sample of persons with recent experience of homelessness and unstable housing histories. In 2010, the Australian Government set about rectifying this deficiency when it commissioned the Melbourne Institute to undertake a new panel study, now known as ‘Journeys Home’. This study draws its sample from the population of Centrelink income-support recipients, targeting persons identified in the administrative data as having recent experience of homelessness, as well as others with similar characteristics who may be vulnerable to housing difficulties in the future. This article summarises the design of this new study and reports on fieldwork outcomes from the first two waves of data collection.

Liquid Life, Solid Homes: Young People, Class and Homeownership in Australia:

This article examines the homeownership aspirations and plans of two groups of young Australian adults defined by their class position as ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘middle class’. We draw on Bauman’s idea of liquid modernity and ‘liquid life’ to frame our analysis. Despite being under less pressure to adopt socially prescribed adult transitions that applied to previous generations – a steady job, marriage, family and a house in the suburbs – young adults from both middle-class and disadvantaged backgrounds aspire to homeownership. In spite of an apparent multitude of choices and an increased emphasis on individual agency, the articulations of their aspirations and plans to achieve it, in the context of the uncertainties of ‘liquid life’, are strongly influenced by their class position, defined primarily through family background and education. The article uses qualitative data drawn from two projects conducted in Melbourne, Australia, 2007–2010.

Young People Transitioning From Out-of-home Care and Relationships with Family of Origin: An Examination of Three Recent Australian Studies

It is generally accepted (for example, Stein and Wade) that those young people who are able to establish positive relationships with their family in care and/or when transitioning from care are more likely to have a positive self-identity and self-confidence, and overall better outcomes. Conversely, poor or non-existent family links may contribute to low self-esteem and limited confidence. Here we present the findings of three recent qualitative Australian studies on young people transitioning from care, which include an overview of their relationships with family of origin. We examine the strengths and weaknesses of these relationships, and suggest implications for practice reform.

No Home Away from Home: A Qualitative Study of Care Leavers' Perceptions and Experiences of ‘Home’

This paper explores the cultural and biographical specificity of home by examining the connections between young peoples experiences of out-of-home care and their definitions of home. The paper draws on 77 in-depth interviews with young people who had lived away from their families in the Australian out-of-home care system. The paper applies a psycho-social conceptualisation of ‘home’ to argue that home was a crucial symbol through which these young people imagined a less challenging future and claimed identities of ‘being normal’. The majority remembered their time in out-of-home care as a time of instability and insecurity in terms of both housing and relationships; they did not feel at home in these contexts. These histories informed young peoples experiences and imagining of home and their sense of identity within and after out-of-home care, as they defined home as fundamentally different from out-of-home care. Their definitions incorporated shelter, emotional well-being, control, routine, caring relationships and stability.

“Dream on”: Declining Homeownership Among Young People in Australia?

ABSTRACT The basis on which policy-makers, researchers and commentators promote the idea that Australia has witnessed a major decline in homeownership is reliant on measurements that are rarely scrutinized. In this article, certain findings about changes in homeownership rates are examined while also pointing to the ways that counting processes informed by certain assumptions that are problematic. While the material used in this article is Australian, we suggest that many of the issues raised are also common to other western nations and for this reason the arguments and conclusions made have a more general application. We note that considerable variations exist in purported changes in homeownership rates, while also arguing that reliance on census data does not allow strong conclusions to be drawn about homeownership rates or movements in and out of homeownership over the past few decades of young people, or indeed any age cohort. Different data and analyses are required. Homeownership rates involve definitions and interpretations, which have significance that are too often are fully appreciated by policy-makers. This, it is argued, has serious implications for housing policy.

Locating and Designing 'Journeys Home': A Literature Review

In this paper we review previous longitudinal research on homelessness with the aim of identifying the necessary design features of Journeys Home to enable researchers and policy makers to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the causes and consequences of homelessness. We show that despite substantial progress in homelessness research in some areas, particularly in the areas of definition and enumeration, there remains a need for large scale longitudinal data to better understand pathways into and out of homelessness. This requires a survey that is representative of a broader population of people experiencing homelessness as well as people vulnerable to homelessness. A large sample of this sort will enable researchers to rigorously examine pathways into and out of homelessness, the structural and individual level causes of homelessness, and key outcomes of homelessness.

Urban safety and poverty in Dhaka, Bangladesh: understanding the structural and institutional linkages

Poverty and crime are significant problems in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Many of Dhakas urban poor are forced to reside in informal settlements, which are typically characterised as ‘breeding grounds of evil’. Getting rid of informal settlements is widely seen as the best way of reducing crime. This paper argues this characterisation is misleading and that the processes that generate and perpetuate crime and safety issues in Dhaka are largely external to informal settlements. Drawing on interviews with residents of informal settlements as well as key stakeholders in government and non-government services, this paper suggests that crime and insecurity are perpetuated through a top-down process driven by the powerful through a chain of networks and institutional linkages that capitalise on the extreme vulnerability of the urban poor who live in informal settlements. The findings indicate that until attention is focused on the structural and institutional factors that support these networks, the opportunity for broader, sustainable social change in Dhaka is limited.

Housing First: Lessons from the United States and Challenges for Australia

Efforts to end long-term homelessness have embraced a Housing First approach. Housing First emphasises rapid placement of clients into independent, permanent accommodation and eschews traditionally favoured requirements that clients demonstrate sobriety or success in treatment programs prior to being offered housing. Although housing retention rates are superior to those obtained from traditional programs, some claims made on behalf of the Housing First approach remain controversial. The present article reviews results from Housing First research to date, as well as challenges and concerns that remain in regard to clinical outcomes, fidelity of implementation and application in the Australian context.