Does social housing reduce homelessness? A multistate analysis of housing and homelessness pathways

Abstract

This article presents a multistate demographic approach for analyzing the longitudinal dynamics of housing and homelessness. The approach is applied to a sample of highly disadvantaged individuals in Australia to assess whether private housing markets and interpersonal support networks provide stable housing trajectories vis-à-vis public and community (social) housing. Discrete-time competing risk survival models are specified to estimate the probabilities of exiting housing to six housing and homeless states. Model outputs are applied to a microsimulation model to estimate the duration of episodes and the cumulative incidence of subsequent episodes of housing and homelessness. The results suggest that private housing markets carry an increased risk of housing exit relative to social housing. The homes of family and friends are the most common destination, though this type of support is usually time limited and often precipitates episodes of homelessness. These findings warrant policy consideration as to how housing markets can provide better affordability and security for low income households.

Keywords:

• Homelessness
• housing policy
• social housing
• rent subsidies
• couch surfing
• doubling up
• multistate demography

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. It uses unit record data from Journeys Home: Longitudinal Study of Factors Affecting Housing Stability (Journeys Home). The study was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS). The Department of Employment has provided information for use in Journeys Home and it is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this article, however, are those of the author and should not be attributed to DSS, the Department of Employment or the Melbourne Institute.