Australia is facing a homelessness crisis: The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimated there were 122,494 people experiencing homelessness in the country on Census night in 2021. Despite this, the nation has no homelessness strategy, nor does it record the number of homeless deaths each year, setting it apart from other western countries.

The homelessness crisis is primarily attributed to a lack of affordable housing, but it is made worse by rising rental costs, lack of resources, and the neglect of government policy. Australia has a decentralised policy framework on homelessness. While the Commonwealth Government - through the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA) - requires states and territories to have their own strategy, these have struggled to address the rising demand for services.  The Productivity Commission, in its 2022 report ‘In need of repair: the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement,’ recognised that the causes of homelessness are mainly structural in nature and described Australia's growing levels of homelessness as clear and concerning evidence of national policy failure. The combination of poverty and tight housing markets has had the most significant structural impact on the overall level of homelessness.  There is more homelessness in places with high unemployment and median rents. Housing First has had varied uptake by organisations in Australia, mainly because of lack of investment from governments and because there is not enough housing available.

Objectives:

• introduce a measurable framework for communities to work towards to prevent, reduce and end homelessness.
• cultivate a shared vision and ownership among communities in reaching and sustaining functional zero.
• advocate to key decision makers for dedicated resources to improve homelessness support services.

The campaign works with ‘communities,’ defined as collaborations of different organisations / government agencies, and with a defined geographic scope, generally a local government area or a cluster of local government area or a cluster of local government areas. It supports these communities to set up local ‘Zero’ projects and deliver activities through a series of improvement cycles, as follows:

The programme works in the following stages: 

1. Action Planning: Communities collaborate to set goals, establish a team, and create a plan for achieving “functional zero.” This means consistently housing more people than entering homelessness. 
2. Quality By-Name List: Communities build a real-time record of those experiencing rough sleeping. 
3. Improve to Zero: Data from the list helps communities implement solutions to reduce homelessness each month. 
4. Sustaining Zero: Once functional zero is achieved, communities focus on maintaining it through ongoing improvement projects. 
5. Zero for All: Successful communities expand their efforts to include new populations and areas. 

This project showcases the impact of evidence-based approaches and how they can be tailored and localised to certain communities by:

• Building a national database specifically for Australia to store by-name homelessness information. This improves how the service is delivered and experienced by users, and creates a central hub for data collection, benefiting policy, research, and advocacy efforts. 
   
• Creating a unique assessment tool for Australia to understand homeless individuals’ needs. It was developed in close collaboration with service providers, people with lived and living experience of homelessness, and First Nations communities. 
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• Implementing a Cultural Engagement project to continually improve how A-Z meets the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experiencing homelessness.  

The main operating costs are employee benefits and consultancy charges for coordinating the campaign, delivering training and supporting improvement cycles for communities. The AAEH receives funding from some governments but is funded by local partner communities contributing funds raised through philanthropy and redirecting existing resources.

Local partner communities are charged the following for Advance to Zero (AtoZ) improvement cycle services:

• Action Planning and/or improvement cycle support – $7,194.96 AUD
• Improvement cycle coaching - $16,191.36 AUD
• Data support: Small project: $2,201.08 AUD medium project: $4,752.00 AUD and large project: $9,504.00 AUD

There is no financial aid programme set up yet for local partner communities.

The total cost of the AtoZ campaign is $1,746,000 AUD. The annual budget has increased over the last 5 years.

Financial Year 2019: $17,000 AUD

Financial Year 2020: $4,100 AUD ($2,730 USD);

Financial Year 2021: $216,400 AUD

Financial Year 2022: $395,900 AUD

Financial Year 2023: $1,112,000 AUD

Funding has been secured from both the South Australian and Western Australian governments to support Zero projects in their states, along with funding and significant in-kind support from key partner organisations including End Street Sleeping Collaboration, Launch Housing, Micah Projects, Neami National and Ruah Community Services.

Ongoing project costs will be met through AAEH income, which has increased almost 200% from previous years because of growing interest and following the management takeover of two key government contracts previously run by partner organisations.

The AtoZ initiative began in 2018 with three partner locations and has since grown to 29, housing more than 4,076 people. The organisers estimate it is helping to secure homes for approximately 900 people every year.  Three locations – Port Philip, Geraldton, and Mandurah – have achieved a measurable reduction in street homelessness already. AAEH has also influenced national policy discussions. Through events and publications, they’ve fostered collaboration and helped secure $6 million AUD for homeless healthcare. 

AtoZ is an excellent example of how to transfer and adapt solutions that can expand rapidly and answer an urgent need for housing. The project uses evidence-based approaches that help local communities to reduce homelessness and target those that are disproportionally affected – such as First Nation people – more effectively. Thanks in large part to AAEH’s work, understanding of homelessness is shifting in the country and the Australian Government is now developing a National Housing and Homelessness Plan, in collaboration with state and territory governments. 

 Media coverage:

• 'To get out is an absolute struggle': landmark study sheds light on Australians sleeping rough, The Guardian February 2022
• Contributed to Guardian Australia investigative series about homelessness, February 2024
• Australia needs more housing but that alone won’t stop homelessness deaths, The Guardian, February 2024
• Homelessness support groups warn Census data 'underrepresents' situation in South Australia, ABC Australia March 2024
• Members appointed to new Advisory Group on homelessness, Western Australia Government press release, March 2023

More than a third of Australians who have experienced homelessness have slept rough. First Nations peoples represent one in five (20.4%) of those experiencing homelessness in Australia despite only making up 3.8% of the total population. Three in every four people using homelessness services are women and children; 50% of whom have experienced domestic and family violence.

Experiences of rough sleeping are catastrophic for people’s health and can lead to individuals dying up to 30 years younger than those who have stable housing – three decades below the national average, making it the worst life expectancy of any disadvantageed group in Australia. Frontline workers say the chronic underfunding of specialised homelessness health services means easily treatable injuries and illnesses are being missed in early stages. This is compounding the significant toll homelessness causes on physical and mental health.

AtoZ is based on Built for Zero, the Community Solutions model developed in the United States but tailored to Australia’s context.

The AtoZ Framework was developed to be transferable to reach the initiative’s goal of ending homelessness, incrementally one community at a time. The Framework is intentionally ‘descriptive, not prescriptive’ to acknowledge that its application will look different across each community’s unique context and operating environment – there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for ending homelessness.

AtoZ continues to be adopted by more communities in Australia, with further plans to scale up from the current total standing of 29. The future focus of AtoZ is to support communities to reach milestones where certain population groups within those sleeping rough (e.g. First Nations people, over 55s) reach functional zero. AtoZ also plans to deliver 90-day change projects where they work directly with local partner communities to improve the intersection of their homelessness systems with others such as housing, health and justice. They also plan to improve the national AtoZ database to further to increase functionality and respond to the growing scale of the campaign.

websites

https://aaeh.org.au/

 https://aaeh.org.au/atoz