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Indigenous Homelessness Report

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5. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Categories of Homelessness

One of the key questions raised in the consultations was whether ‘homelessness’ as experienced by Indigenous people should be defined differently from existing policy definitions, or whether differences lie in the way needs are expressed and responded to. A widely accepted policy definition of ‘homelessness’, based on housing circumstances, has been proposed by MacKenzie and Chamberlain (1992).  This definition is described as a ‘cultural’ definition because what counts as ‘homelessness’ will depend on what a particular community regards as the minimum acceptable housing circumstances beneath which people are considered homeless. This policy definition does not depend on whether someone defines themselves as homeless or not.

The ‘cultural’ definition has been used in a number of research studies and was adopted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the 1996 National Census of Population and Housing.  A slightly modified version of this definition was also used by the House of Representatives Report on Aspects of Youth Homelessness (in 1995). There seems to be an emerging consensus that this definition provides a framework for research and policy work on homelessness. One issue was how well would cases of Indigenous homeless people fit into the categories of primary, secondary and tertiary homelessness? In other words, would the experience of Indigenous homelessness fit with the current policy definitional categories of ‘primary’, ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ homelessness?

Table 1: Cultural definition of homelessness

One comment highlighted a ‘make-do approach’ that drew from Indigenous cultural sources of family hospitality:

I suppose you don’t look at some things as a problem you can’t live with, because you will put yourself out to look after the mob, and that’s the reality of it all.  But, it is an actual problem and you know, I think most people say, oh, you know if anybody asks would you like to have your own place, they’d say ‘ yes’.  That’s the basic answer.  You know, everyone would say yes, it would be good if they had their own place, even if it was next door.  But, it’s not seen as a huge problem.  You must live with it.

Clearly, people sleeping without shelter or any home were homeless:

We use the term ‘parkies’ but if you ask them, you know, would you like a house to live in, they’d probably say no.  But, they wouldn’t mind something. The creation or establishment of George Wright Hostel is probably a classic example of something that came out of homelessness in the community.  Of course, there’s a need for it.  A hostel for homeless men was established.

The second category was called ‘secondary homelessness’, people with only temporary shelter. There were some questions about what ‘temporary’ meant. Temporary could be a short time or it could be months, but the temporary stayer had no other place of their own to call home.

Well, it fits because if I go and stay with [name deleted], it’s a temporary arrangement, but I still have no home, whether it be a week or a month.  I don’t have a home of my own - I’m homeless.  That’s why I’m there.

You can be with someone for a couple of days, and then you have to move on, so you’re regularly in between constantly until you find shelter.

Because Indigenous people who become homeless are often able to find a place to stay, this category can also be described as a form of ‘hidden homelessness’:

… we’ll look after them.  There are very few people who actually end up really on the street, you know, and sleeping under trees and things like that, you know, sitting on park benches, very few of our people, especially in country areas.  Most people end up staying with someone because you’ll probably get looked after, that sort of thing, but that is disguising it.  If everybody who needed accommodation set up a tent in the main street of town we would probably have, you know, five or six tents up in the street.  You know, you would probably have 100 people.  So, that’s the sort of thing but if you go to other towns it might even be more.

The third category was ‘tertiary homelessness’, people temporarily in boarding houses. It was pointed out that living in boarding houses can be more difficult than transient hostels or other supported accommodation.  An example was given of someone on $150 a week benefits, out of which they pay about $110 for accommodation, leaving $40 a week to buy other things:

It’s very expensive even in the transient quarter for people on low income.  Now, boarding houses are even worse.  There are private hotels also.  The boarding house goes without meals whereas the transient hostel has three meals a day, so they can survive in a transient situation.  A boarding house is worse because it’s without and the rent is probably more than a transient hostel.

Whether one group experiences homelessness in a similar way to another group is one issue, but whether different groups should uphold different policy definitions touches on another issue of equal rights to services and programs. Should there be one policy definition inclusive of all citizens? If so, can difference be expressed through describing the needs of different groups? The discussions were mostly about the range of issues and needs while the meaning of homelessness did not emerge as a major controversy.

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