This project examined older people’s homelessness in Australia, with a particular focus on the experience of becoming homeless for the first time in later life.

This research project drew on individual client case records and interviews with professionals working in the Assistance with Care and Housing for the Aged (ACHA) program. The program is designed to assist disadvantaged older people who are at risk of homelessness or who are homeless.

Those with a conventional housing history who faced homelessness were typically renters, and faced critical housing incidents such as being served a Notice to Vacate or family breakdown, or faced a lack of affordable housing options. Some also lived in housing with inappropriate design, making it unsafe to continue their residency.

Key intervention strategies used to resettle older people were found to include:

• Assessing an individual’s circumstances, needs and goals at initial contact (using a person-centred and holistic framework).
• Investigating whether the residency can be maintained through use of advocacy, negotiation with landlords, and brokerage of services.
• Providing affordable or accessible housing options such as social housing, private housing or caravan parks where the older person can maintain a long term tenancy.
• Providing supports to assist the older person to remain independent in the community or providing practical assistance such as whitegoods and assistance with moving.

An essential component in all circumstances is access to housing. However there is a shortage of affordable and appropriate stock, particularly the private rental market, to facilitate older people ageing in place. Transitional or long-term additional rent subsidies for private renters may make it a more sustainable tenure. Landlords could also help sustain tenancies for older people by permitting modifications to their properties.

The breakdown in intergenerational family housing arrangements and its link with homelessness might be addressed by better understanding the role of carer stress, overcrowding, tension, conflict or elder abuse in the development of housing crises. Additional resources or the provision of alternative family housing may also serve to prevent these relationship breakdowns.