Scale of the problem

Although there is a large shortage of social and affordable housing in all of the major cities of Australia, recent estimates suggest that the number of people who sleep in the open in NSW is about 2600, of whom about a third have severe mental illness. If you add a proportion of the 700 or so people with schizophrenia who rotate between prison and the homeless sector, the number of people who require this kind of supported accommodation is about 1000. By contrast, there are about 1600 psychiatric beds in NSW.

Cost of homelessness to the community

Homeless people generate health, justice and other costs that far exceed the cost of providing supported housing. The City of Sydney estimates that the sanitation costs of rough sleepers alone is about $30,000 per person. In Canada, the chronically homeless were estimated to have generated average service costs of C$135,000 per annum. All of the economic analyses of similar models of supported accommodation show significant savings in hospital and other costs, for example, outcome analysis of the Michael Project and the Haven Foundation. A recent study linking the health records of 2140 attenders at Sydney homeless clinics found they had a total of 27,466 hospital admissions costing $548m in an average follow up of 8 years.

Solutions elsewhere

The Habilis model is similar in many respects to the very successful Haven Foundation in Melbourne. Key differences are that Habilis aims to house people from the homeless sector, and our model provides care on site, in addition to holistic social support. The Habilis model also closely resembles the successful Y Foundation in Finland, the only country in Europe to have reduced its homeless population in recent years. The Finnish model provides long term housing integrated with support services and care.