James Rowe

A wasting resource: public housing and drug use in inner‐city Melbourne

Public housing is one of few sources of low‐income rental housing in inner‐city Melbourne, Australia. Most of this housing is easily identifiable high‐rise estates. Some of these estates have become established centres of heroin dealing and drug use. This has had significant consequences: applicants reject offers of housing on the estates; tenants apply for transfers; and housing officers face workplace occupational health and safety issues. In sum, the presence of the drug trade is undermining the provision of affordable, well‐located public housing. This paper contributes to discussions that seek to restore the value of this common resource. It does so by drawing on qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted with heroin users who live in and/or use public housing. The experience of these individuals gives insight into the current relationship between the illicit drug trade and public housing, as well as some understanding of the resilience of the illicit drug trade. The paper looks at measures that have been implemented to address this problem, before questioning whether there is room for an innovative, regulatory response to illicit drug use.

Laying the foundations: addressing heroin use among the 'street homeless'

The lack of secure housing can exacerbate the health problems associated with injecting drug use. The lack of hygiene, security and personal organization that are part of a transient lifestyle increases the tendency towards, and exposure to, risky drug use behaviours with implications for both the drug user and the wider community. However, homeless drug users have little realistic hope of better ‘managing’ drug use without access to secure accommodation as a first step. Drug treatment and health care services are not sufficiently structured to meet the particular needs of homeless individuals. This paper acts as a ‘conduit’ for the words of heroin users to demonstrate, from their perspective, the need for housing provision and the dangers of injecting drug use in marginal living environments. It closes with a short discussion of how housing must be integrated with further support services if users are not to relapse.

Clients are central to any independent and rigorous evaluation of the services they use

In 2005, I spent a year onsite at a newly established primary health centre (PHC), designed to meet the needs of street-based injecting drug users (IDUs) - as well as homeless individuals and sex workers attracted to the area due to the nearby street sex market and the long-established needle and syringe program (NSP) in the adjoining building. The NSP - managed by the same organisation - had served as the site for preliminary research conducted into the health care needs of those who would become the centres clients.