Unmet demand for specialist homelessness services

Specialist homelessness agencies in Australia provide assistance to many people each day. In 2014–15, on average, each day 53,840 people were supported. However, there were also people who approached agencies who could not be offered any assistance. These people may have approached more than one agency or returned to the same agency another day. An instance where no assistance is given to a person who approaches a service is referred to as 'unassisted request for service'.

There may be a range of reasons why an agency cannot assist a person. For example, the person may be seeking a specialised service not offered by that particular agency or the agency may not have the capacity to provide assistance at that time. The person may not be in the target group for the agency. These people may be referred to another agency for assistance, but the SHSC does not currently capture this activity. See Technical information and glossary for information on the way in which unassisted requests for services are measured in the SHSC.

There was an average of 329 instances of unassisted requests for services each day in 2014–15.

This section presents information on unmet demand from 2 perspectives:

  • Unassisted requests for services relate to people who are not able to be offered any assistance by the SHS agency
  • Unmet need captures those clients who had some, but not all, of their identified needs met.

The SHSC captures only limited information about unassisted requests for services, because it is not always appropriate for specialist homelessness agencies to collect the same level of detailed information as they would if the person became a client.

Unassisted requests for services: trends over time

In 2014–15, there were an estimated 119,910 requests for assistance that were not met. This represents a decrease of 22% from last year. Some key trends in unmet demand over the 4 years since the collection began have been:

  • Numbers of unassisted requests remained stable from 2011–12 to 2013–14 but decreased in 2014–15. The decrease was due to reductions primarily in New South Wales and Queensland and is a reflection of the impact of new service delivery models in these states. For further details see the data quality information in the Technical information section.
  • In contrast to the changes occurring in the number of unassisted requests for services, the number of support periods and the number of clients have been increasing over the same period.

Table 1: Unassisted requests for service: at a glance—trends over time
  2012–13
Unassisted requests		 2012–13
All assisted clients		 2013–14
Unassisted requests		 2013–14
All assisted clients		 2014–15
Unassisted requests		 2014–15
All assisted clients
Number 152,103 244,176 *154,446 254,001 119,910 255,657
Sex 60% female
40% male		 59% female
41% male		 61% female
39% male		 59% female
41% male		 64% female
36% male		 59% female
41% male
Living arrangement
Lone person 70% 32% 68% 30% 63% 29%
Sole parent 27% 31% 29% 33% 33% 34%
Couple with child/ren — 13% — 13% — 13%
Couple without children 1% 6% 2% 5% 2% 5%
Other family group 2% 19% 2% 18% 2% 19%

— Rounded to zero

* Indicates where previously published data have been revised to ensure consistent reporting over time.

Source: Specialist homelessness services annual reports 2012–13, 2013–14 and 2014–15.

Unassisted requests for service

Analysis of how often a person requested assistance and how many later became clients of specialist homelessness agencies can only be undertaken where the SLK was completed (about half of all unassisted requests). In 2014–15, on average, each person who was not assisted approached an agency 1.4 times, similar to 2013–14. In 2014–15, 32% of those with a valid SLK later went on to become a client and receive services during the year compared with 29% in 2013–14. The outcomes for the remaining 68% are not known—they may have received assistance from a non-SHS service, used their own support networks or continued to experience unstable housing.

Number of unassisted requests for services

1 in 4

unassisted requests were from females aged between 18 and 34 years (overall, nearly 2 in 3 of all ages were women, and 1 in 3 were men).

In 2014–15, there was an estimated 119,910 requests for service where an agency was not able to provide any assistance (Table UNMET.1). This equates to an average 329 requests per day that could not be met (Table UNMET.4). On average, about 212 daily unassisted requests (or 65% of all requests) were made by females, and 116 (35%) by males. This reflects the overall service user population, which is predominantly female.

  • The daily average number of unassisted requests was much lower than in 2013–14 (a decrease of 22%) (Figure UNMET.1).
  • Neither the proportions of requests that were from females and males nor their age group distributions have changed from the previous year.
  • Four in 5 requests from single persons (aged 15 or over) with children were from females (81%) and most of these females were aged between 18 and 34 (62% of single females).

Figure UNMET.1: Proportion of unassisted requests, by sex and age group, 2014–15

Figure UNMET.1: Proportion of unassisted requests, by sex and age group, 2014–15. The population pyramid shows that in age groups above 18 years’ the proportions of unassisted requests by females were more than double those by males. The largest proportions of unassisted requests were by females aged either 25–34 or 18–24, each making up over 14%25 of all unassisted requests. For those 14 and under, there were similar proportions of males and females.

Source: Specialist homelessness services 2014–15, National supplementary table UNMET.1 (702KB XLS).

What services were requested?

Over 70%

of average daily unassisted requests included a need for some type of accommodation support.

  • The majority of unassisted daily accommodation requests related to short-term or emergency accommodation (60%) (Figure UNMET.2). Females were more likely than males to have unmet requests for short-term or emergency accommodation (61% and 39%, respectively).

Figure UNMET.2: Services requested as proportion of daily unassisted requests, by sex, 2014–15

Figure UNMET.2: Services requested as proportion of daily unassisted requests, by sex, 2014–15. The stacked column graph shows that by far the most common unassisted service request was for short-term or emergency accommodation, making up 60%25 of all unassisted requests. Nearly two thirds was from females. Other main unassisted requests included specialist service (without accommodation), other housing assistance, and general assistance only.

Source: Specialist homelessness services 2014–15, National supplementary table UNMET.5 (702KB XLS).

  • Ninety-three per cent of daily unassisted requests for services from single persons with their children were for accommodation needs, compared with 62% for single persons without children (Figure UNMET.3).

Figure UNMET.3: Proportion of unassisted requests for services by single person and single people with children, by service type, 2014–15

Figure UNMET.3: Proportion of unassisted requests for services by single person and single people with children, by service type, 2014–15. The column graph shows that for both single persons alone and single persons with children, short-term or emergency accommodation was by far the most common form of assistance that was unmet. Other requests which were unmet included other housing assistance, specialist service (without accommodation) and general assistance only.

Source: Specialist homelessness services 2014–15, National supplementary table UNMET.6 (702KB XLS).

  • Most commonly, agencies reported that they could not meet requests for accommodation because there was no accommodation available at the time of the request (51% of unmet requests for accommodation) (Table UNMET.7). This figure is down from 58% in 2013–14.

Unmet need for services

Clients receiving support from specialist homelessness services are often identified as needing a wide range of services. Some needs arise more than once in a support period and this makes it difficult to assess (from the available data) the extent to which they have been met. In this section, each client need and the services to meet that need are only identified once in each support period.

Unmet need for accommodation and housing assistance services

  • The most common need identified was for accommodation. In 2014–15, 56% of all clients needed at least 1 type of accommodation service.
  • 84,000 clients (or 33% of SHS clients) identified a need for long-term accommodation; only about 5,000 (or 6%) of those were provided with the service (Figure UNMET.4).
  • 95,000 clients (or 37% of SHS clients) needed short-term or emergency accommodation; 66% of those requesting this service were provided with assistance.
  • The numbers of clients requesting these 2 forms of accommodation were similarly large however the considerable difference in the proportions of clients receiving these types of accommodation highlights the substantial unmet need for long-term housing for SHS clients.

Figure UNMET.4: The number of clients with unmet needs for accommodation and housing assistance services, 2014–15

Figure UNMET.4: The number of clients with unmet needs for accommodation and housing assistance services, 2014–15. The stacked bar graph shows that for accommodation services, short-term or emergency accommodation had the least unmet need, and most provided service. By contrast, long-term housing, which had a similar number of clients needing the service, had the largest number of clients with unmet service needs, and the least number of clients provided with assistance.

Note: Unmet includes 'Not provided nor referred'.

Source: Specialist homelessness services 2014–15, National supplementary table CLIENTS.15 (702KB XLS).

Unmet need for general and specialised services

  • Some types of client needs were met for a significant proportion of clients. For example, of the 141,000 clients who needed assistance for advocacy/liaison, 97% were provided assistance, and of the clients requesting material brokerage (90,000), 88% were provided with assistance (Table CLIENTS.15).
  • Other types of client needs were less commonly met. For example, among those clients who required gambling counselling (less than 1% of clients), the level of unmet need was substantial—around 27% at the end of support. This may be related to the specialist skills required to provide gambling counselling and the limited availability of these skills within the SHS agencies and other services that clients may be referred to.

The level of need for broad groups of specialised services is shown in Figure UNMET.5.

  • Mental health services were one of the most common specialised services identified as needed but these needs were most commonly unmet (neither provided nor referred).
  • More than a quarter of the clients identifying with a need for either disability services or drug and alcohol services did not have their needs met.

Figure UNMET.5: The number of clients with unmet needs for specialised services (grouped), 2014–15

Figure UNMET.5 The number of clients with unmet needs for specialised services (grouped), 2014-15. The stacked bar graph shows that mental health services had the most unmet demand, with over 5,000 service requests unmet, compared with 11,000 provided. This was followed by legal/financial services, and family services. While disability had a small number unmet service needs at nearly 1,000, the proportion compared with disability services, provided is higher than the other services.

Note: Unmet includes 'Not provided nor referred'.

Source: Specialist homelessness services 2014–15, National supplementary table CLIENTS.15 (702KB XLS).