The drivers of high health and justice costs among a cohort young homeless people in Australia

Abstract

Our study utilizes Australian survey evidence to estimate the heath and justice costs of a cohort of young homeless people. Health and justice costs for young homeless people are highly skewed with median costs well below mean costs. This is particularly true of justice costs resulting from a relatively high proportion of young homeless people having no interaction with the justice system. Having a diagnosed mental health condition is a primary driver of both health and justice costs. Having been homeless or sleeping rough in the previous year is associated with approximately four times mean health and justice costs compared with not having experienced homelessness. High justice costs are associated not only with having a diagnosed mental health condition homelessness and rough sleeping, but also a high-risk of dependence on one or more drugs or alcohol, identifying as Indigenous and a history of out-of-home care before the age of 18.

Keywords:

• Homelessness
• youth
• health care
• justice
• mental health
• rough sleeping

Note

Acknowledgements

The Costs of Youth Homelessness in Australia project is an Australian Research Council Linkage research project undertaken by the Swinburne University Institute for Social Research, the University of Western Australia and Charles Sturt University, in partnership with The Salvation Army, Mission Australia and Anglicare Canberra & Goulburn. The authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in the publication. The research team is grateful to all those young people who generously and willingly gave up their time to share their life experiences and who made themselves available to be surveyed once a year for three years. The Cost of Youth Homelessness in Australia researchers are particularly appreciative of the research assistants who worked tirelessly to complete the difficult collection of longitudinal data: Rachel Brand (University of Western Australia Centre for Social Impact (UWA CSI)), Daniel Sutton (UWA CSI), Kimberlee Baldry (UWA CSI), Jake Miller (UWA CSI), Kathleen Nolan (Swinburne University), Ian Rau (Swinburne University), Alicia Bauskis (UWA CSI). A special thank you is due to all the youth homelessness agencies and Job Services Australia services around Australia who saw the need for such research and supported the project by helping to recruit and survey participants. The project could not have happened without the assistance of these agencies. Finally, the support of the then Commonwealth Government Department of Human Services (Centrelink) in helping to locate difficult to reach participants in waves 2 and 3 is acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was partially funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Program and partners Salvation Army, Mission Australia and Anglicare Anglicare Canberra & Goulburn. The authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in the publication.

Notes on contributors

Paul Flatau is Professor and Chair in Social Investment and Impact at the Centre for Social Impact (CSI), The University of Western Australia (UWA) in the UWA Business School, UWA, Perth, Australia.

Kaylene Zaretzky is a Senior Research Fellow at the CSI UWA, UWA Business School, UWA, Perth, Australia.

Emma Crane is a researcher at the CSI UWA and is completing postgraduate study at Cambridge University.

Georgina Carson was formerly a researcher at the CSI UWA and is now a PhD candidate and researcher in Quantum Computing at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Adam Steen is Professor of Practice, Deakin Business School, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria.

Monica Thielking is an Associate Professor and Deputy Chair in the Department of Psychological Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia.

David MacKenzie is Associate Professor and Industry and Research Coordinator in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.

Notes

1 The Cost of Youth Homelessness Study received Swinburne University of Technology Human Research Ethics Committee approval on 5 January 2011 (SUHREC Project 2010/301).