Homelessness and the Mentally Ill

The Principles

Every individual has an inalienable right to quality of life.

Adequate housing is a basic human need and is, therefore, universally recognised as a fundamental human right (cf UN Declaration of Human Rights).

While non-government organizations play an important role in providing community-housing alternatives, the overall responsibility for housing people living with mental illness rests with the elected government.

The Federal Governments has an important role to ensure that basic needs are met, particularly the needs of those who are most marginalised. These undoubtedly include people with disabilities and those suffering with mental illness.

The Issues

Although public housing is managed by State Government agencies, funding for this type of housing is largely provided by the Federal Government, making this both a State and Federal issue, a fact which often provides difficulties for advocates of people living with mental illness.

There has been a decline in funding for the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement. CSHA is a tied grant (ie for a specific purpose) and this, coupled with the fact that the States will receive most of their revenue through the GST, may lead the Federal Government to reduce further its contribution to the CSHA. There have been indications that the Government may eventually withdraw all tied grants if GST revenues grow beyond the level of previous Commonwealth grants.

People living with mental illness, developmental disability, or both of these conditions, are among the poorest and most disadvantaged in our community. They have few advocates.

The process of deinstitutionalisation and the integration of people with disabilities into the community has been unsatisfactory. Money saved from deinstitutionalisation has not gone into community care.

Since de-regulation, many places have closed, and as hospitals closed, former patients moved into licensed boarding houses. The number of licensed boarding houses residents still requiring twenty-four hour care in appropriate supported accommodation has risen significantly. Many people with age-related disabilities cannot be placed in Aged Care because there are no appropriate places. It is also becoming more difficult to move people with moderate level needs into appropriate boarding houses.

People who fail the regulation screening test often have nowhere else to go. They include long-stay patients who are being moved out of wards or cottages in the grounds of psychiatric hospitals. Many people with addictions or low-level disabilities end up in unlicensed boarding (rooming) houses. In NSW, residents have no protection under law.

There are many people with long-term mental illness, aged from 40 and 50, requiring some level of support to help them retain tenancies in Public Housing or to survive in rooming houses. They are not eligible for residential Aged Care or for Community Aged-Care Packages because their disabilities are not age-related. Frequently, they also end up in caravan parks, crisis refuges or on the streets.

In some states residents of boarding houses are required to pay GST on their rent.

Some Suggested Alternatives

1. The development of a reform program (involving non-government organizations with experience in this area), to produce a range of options, which include new models to replace the large boarding houses.

2. Legislation to provide residents of caravan parks, boarding and rooming houses with tenancy rights, ensuring: · access to the Residential Tribunal for dispute resolution · minimum periods of written notice for eviction and the possibility of defending the notice of eviction in the Residential Tribunal · sixty days written notice of any rent increase.

3. Exemption from GST on rent for residents of boarding houses.

4. An allocation of funding for Aged-care Facilities designed specifically for formerly homeless people with age-related disabilities, mental illness, intellectual disability or alcohol-related brain damage.

5. The provision of mental health Community Care Packages with an outreach component to enable workers to enter boarding and rooming houses. These services would facilitate greater integration into the community, less hospitalisation and would not require a health professional to administer them.

6. The reinstatement of weekly psychiatric clinics at the large inner city hostels and the establishment of a proactive, team approach to the case management of homeless people.

7. Guaranteed and adequate Federal funding of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement to provide more public housing units and maintain present ones.