Understanding public erceptions and attitudes to homelessness in Australia
Deb Batterham
Hanover Welfare Services
Contact Email:   dbatterhamhanover.org.au

This paper presents findings from the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes on Homelessness. While many believed individual factors led to homelessness (e.g. poor decision making, lack of effort), many also identified reasons beyond individual control such as family breakdown, domestic violence, and shortages of affordable housing. Government and public services were most commonly, but not solely, seen as responsible for addressing homelessness.

Exploratory principle components analysis revealed an underlying structure to participants’ responses. Three components or response patterns emerged. Respondents viewed Homelessness as a problem:

- with external causes requiring government solutions;
- of collective responsibility;
- with individual causes, where individuals and their families held responsibility.

Demographic factors such as age, gender, class, educational attainment and political affiliation were explored as predictors of attitudes. While some significant relationships were found, multiple regression analysis revealed that these factors explained very little of the overall variance in attitudes to homelessness. This has implications for public opinion research on homelessness, which has focused largely on demographic attributes as predictors of attitudes.

Hanover Welfare Services is a leading Melbourne-based provider of services to people experiencing homelessness or housing crisis. Attitudes towards homelessness are a prominent component of Hanover’s research agenda.

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