Dear Commissioners, Re: Submission to the People’s Commission into the

Summary of recommendations Our submission First Nations women’s experiences of discrimination in the private rental market Homelessness and the rental crisis Failure of the private rental market to meet the needs of criminalised and formerly incarcerated people Family violence and homelessness The nexus between homelessness, family violence and incarceration of First Nations women Inadequate condi. [...] The importance of appropriate housing to improving the health and wellbeing of First Nations peoples is well established and accepted by government and civil society, and acknowledged in the inclusion of a housing target in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. [...] In addition to the chronic inadequacy of support services and public and community-controlled housing overall, a lack of cultural competence and expertise in mainstream services greatly reduces the chances of First Nations people receiving the support needed to secure safe, stable and appropriate housing. [...] Recent scholarship about the relationship between bail and remand and the marginalisation and criminalisation of First Nations women identifies and analyses the connections between the systemic disadvantages and inequalities experienced by criminalised victim-survivors. [...] The first is through regulation of rents and protecting and enforcing the rights of renters, and the second is the direct provision of public housing at scale and the entrenchment of First Nations community-controlled housing.