Submission to the UN: DV the most common cause of homelessness

Domestic and family violence is the most common cause of homelessness in Australia, according to the NGO report to the UN committee for Economic Social and Cultural Rights. This report has been submitted to the 2017 review of Australia’s fifth Periodic Report under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

PIAC contributed to the development of the report, which was prepared by the National Association of Community Legal Centres and Kingsford Legal Centre.

The report also emphasises the continuing interrelationship between homelessness and imprisonment, which has been the focus of PIAC’s policy work and HPLS casework, as noted in the PIAC report ‘Beyond the Prison Gates’.

PIAC was involved in co-ordinating the responses of all of the homeless persons’ legal clinics around Australia to respond to Article 11 of the ICESCR in relation to the right to adequate housing. As part of this contribution, six issues in need of urgent attention:

1. Children and the right to adequate housing
2. Women and the right to adequate housing
3. The need for a housing strategy for Australia
4. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the right to adequate housing
5. Criminalisation of homelessness and poverty
6. The Intersection of homelessness and imprisonment 

The final report is available here.