Exits from rough sleeping into housing exceed the number of new people sleeping rough

Summary

• Launch Housing has always prioritised support to people sleeping rough. Our Advance to Zero and Assertive Outreach teams are supporting people with a long history of sleeping rough into housing.
• 104 people on our By-Name-Lists moved to secured housing.
• 23% of people sleeping rough who were assisted by a specialist homelessness service in Victoria were supported by Launch Housing.

Analysis

Advance to Zero projects are highly localised and person-centred

Our history and focus on supporting people sleeping rough means we implement new evidence-based approaches to deliver the best possible outcomes for the people we work with. As part of this, we have continued to expand the proven, internationally recognised Advance to Zero programs across Victoria this year.

Advance to Zero programs are a highly localised, person-centred and integrated approach to ending chronic homelessness in a specific area. They focus on knowing exactly who is sleeping rough in a local area by name and what they need to access long-term housing, coordinating with local service providers and work with the person to maintain housing. This is supported through a shared By-Name-List (BNL) for each local area that recognises every person sleeping rough by name.

Launch Housing has supported or led the development of Advance to Zero programs in seven local government areas (LGAs) – City of Port Phillip, City of Melbourne, City of Stonington, City of Yarra, City of Dandenong, City of Frankston, with City of Yarra and City of Merri-bek added this year. We expect one more LGA in the Southeast to officially begin an Advance to Zero project in the coming year.

Advance to Zero programs require skilled Assertive Outreach teams to bring together local services across the various systems to deliver collective impact for clients on a BNL. Given the breadth of our outreach programs, we have been in a unique position to trial this approach in areas of highest needs. With the success of the programs in areas with established assertive outreach teams, we are now supporting other local communities and local governments to develop their own place-based Advance to Zero programs using the resources within their communities. At its core is the integrated support and multidisciplinary service delivery and coordination approach – having all local service providers involved and invested is essential to the program’s success.

This year, we added 352 people to a By-Name-List (BNL). 104 people came off a BNL because they secured housing. Of those housed, 62 were in public housing, 32 in community housing, 6 in private rental and 4 in Supported Residential or long-term aged care.

The City of Melbourne continues to have the most people added to the BNL, but also has the most people exiting into housing. This is to be expected as it’s where more people are sleeping rough and have always slept rough.

A breakdown by each LGA and our progress is described below.

LGA	Added to the BNL	Housed	Difference
City of Port Phillip	48	13	-35
City of Melbourne	97	37	-60
City of Stonnington	16	2	-14
City of Yarra	75	25	-50
City of Dandenong	49	8	-41
City of Frankston	62	19	-43
City of Merri-bek	5	0	-5

Demographics

• 35% of women found secure housing and moved off the BNL list
• 17% of First Nations clients from the BNLs secured housing this year.

Looking ahead

We have a long way to go yet before we can achieve zero street homelessness in Melbourne. Securing housing outcomes for people sleeping on the streets can be very difficult. In Victoria this year, there were 6,331 people in Victoria who were sleeping rough (AIHW) and presented to an SHS service. Fourteen percent exited to some form of secure housing at the end of support, however, the majority of these clients exited to ‘no tenure’ — highlighting the difficulty all agencies face in securing housing outcomes for people sleeping rough.

Moving forward, we will continue to focus on providing highly localised, person-centred services to rough sleepers by advocating for a state-wide Advance to Zero approach to rough sleeping. We are calling on the Victorian Government and all local governments across Melbourne to:

• Create and maintain a By-Name List that enables every person sleeping rough to be known personally by the services supporting them 
• Work to improve supply of and pathways to social and affordable housing, with the services people need to escape the cycle of homelessness 
• Support the creation of a metropolitan wide By-Name List, to ensure no one falls between the cracks if they move to different parts of the city trying to find the help they need.

We thank the following donors for their generous support in the Advance to Zero programs: 

• Collier Charitable Fund
• Erdi Foundation
• The Blueshore Charitable Trust
• The Bowden Marstan Foundation
• William Angliss Charitable Fund
• And generous individuals and families who would prefer to remain anonymous.