Crisis accommodation in Australia: now and for the future

407 Crisis accommodation in Australia: now and for the future 3 Executive summary It is difficult to ascertain the capacity of SHS provided crisis accommodation across jurisdictions, or the number of people placed in purchased crisis accommodation and the associated expenditure. [...] As Bullen (2010) notes: The focus of the funding under the HPAA was to provide accommodation and to fund part of the wages for social workers and welfare workers to encourage the professionalisation of the workforce and a shift away from a charitable mindset that aimed to improve individuals and views homelessness as a choice or result of bad character. [...] 1.4 Structure of the report In the next chapter we explore the crisis accommodation landscape in Australia in more detail, looking in particular at capacity issues, the location of crisis accommodation and the way it is accessed, and exit options. [...] Chapter 6 concludes with a discussion of the key elements of effective crisis accommodation and the role of crisis accommodation in Australia’s homelessness sector now and in the future. [...] However, comparison of the numbers in columns two (point in time measure) and three (measured over a financial year) shows that the supply of SHS crisis accommodation is so small relative to demand that the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night exceeds the number of people in SHS crisis accommodation over the course of a year (except in Victoria and WA).