What Does the Homeless Data say About Rural Homelessness?

For academics, policy-makers and others concerned with the broad-brush analysis of the homeless population, there have been significant leaps made in recent years in the methodology of homelessness data collection. Through the dedicated work of people like Chris Chamberlain and David MacKenzie, in collaboration with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the ongoing reform of the SAAP National Data Collection, it is now possible to make reliable estimates of the geographical dimensions and socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the homeless population. Given the well publicised elusiveness of homeless people, and their tendency to move in and out of homeless categories, this is quite an achievement. Drawing upon these two data sources, we aim to do two main things in this paper: 1) provide a brief overview of the extent and nature of homelessness in rural Australia and, particularly, New South Wales; and 2) discuss some of the problematic methodological and geographical issues associated with quantifying the homeless.