• WAAEH Dashboard
  
  
• Strategy


• WA Advance to Zero Campaign
  Ending chronic homelessness in WA
  
  Reducing the rate of homelessness in WA
  
  Reducing Aboriginal homelessness
  
  Addressing the needs of those experiencing homelessness
  
  
• Strategic Initiatives
  Addressing underlying drivers of homelessness in Western Australia


• Events & Training


• Advocacy


• TBD 1
  Ending homelessness in Western Australia
  
  The WA Homelessness Strategy: Action Plan 2020-2025
  
  
• TBD 2


• Authors

Reducing Aboriginal homelessness

Target 5

The Western Australian rate of homelessness (including couch surfing and insecure tenure) will have halved from its 2016 level. The current very large gap between the rate of Aboriginal homelessness and non-Aboriginal homelessness in Western Australia will be eliminated so that the rate of Aboriginal homelessness is no higher than the rate of non-Aboriginal homelessness.

There is a significant over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Western Australian homeless population. While making up only 3.3% of the general population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders represented 35% of the homeless population at the 2021 Census (ABS, 2021). Between 2011 and 2016, there was a substantial decrease in the overall rate of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander homelessness. However, the Indigenous homelessness rate increased in 2021, from 344.6 persons per 10,000 to 380.5 persons per 10,000. This rate of increase needs to not only be reversed, but dramatically decreased to achieve the goal of eliminating the over-representation of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander homelessness in WA. (Figure 5.1).

The rate of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander homelessness living in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out drastically increased from 2016 to 2021, from 48.8 per 10,000 to 148.1 per 10,000. Since this is reflective of the most extreme form of homelessness, an even stronger focus will need to be put into improving the ability of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people within this category to exit it (Figure 5.2).