Quality longitudinal data of homeless Australians is needed to measure this performance indicator but currently does not exist. Consequently, this performance indicator is measured and reported with an interim proxy.

Number of people seeking assistance for housing/accommodation need more than once in a year/ Number of people seeking assistance for housing/accommodation needs.

The information ‘housing/accommodation need identified by SAAP agency worker’ can be sourced from Question 17 of the SAAP Client collection from. Four types of housing and accommodation are available for identification.

• SAAP/CAP accommodation (including THMs and other SAAP managed properties)
• Assistance to obtain/maintain short-term accommodation 
• Assistance to obtain/maintain medium-term accommodation
• Assistance to obtain/maintain independent housing.

A SAAP support period commences when a client begins to receive support and/or supported accommodation from a SAAP agency. The support period if considered to finish when

• The client ends the relationship with the agency; or
• The agency ends the relationship with the client.

If it is not clear whether the agency or the client has ended the relationship, the support period is assumed to have ended if no assistance has been provided to the client for a period of 1 month.

 In such a case, the date the support period ended is the last contact with the client.

• Accompanying child is defined as a person aged under 18 years who:
• Has a parent of guardian who is a SAAP client: and
• Accompanies that client to a SAAP agency any time during that client’s support period; and/or received assistance directly as a consequence of a parent or guardian’s support period.
  
  

Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations for the National Affordability Housing Agreement (NAHA), annual. 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

SCRGSP (Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision) 2009, National Agreement performance information 2008-09: National Affordable Housing Agreement, Productivity Commission, Canberra.

The report was released by the COAG Reform Council in 2010.

NPA on Homelessness Baseline: 14,800 SAAP clients required 3 or more support periods in a 12 month period of financial year 2006-07.

Benchmark: By 2013, 25% reduction (down to 13,700) in 3 repeat periods of homelessness at a (homelessness) services in 12 months.

The AIHW has been funded through the Commonwealth appropriation to develop a new national homelessness data collection which is to become operational on 1 July 2011. The new data collection will be client-based and collect data on clients receiving homelessness services as well as the nature and impact of the resulting services responses. The collection will also seek to improve and incorporate data from crisis and transitional accommodation services.
Before the new homelessness data collection is operational and ready to be used for COAG reporting, AIHW and ABS will, under the guidance of HHIMG and in collaboration with other experts, put in place a development plan to further improve the interim proxy measure and to develop a more robust measure for this performance indicator.

Consideration is being given to the following repeat periods of homelessness:

Numerator: Number of people experiencing repeat periods of homelessness

Denominator: Number of Australians

Presentation: Per 10,000 population