PANDENIZENS
Homelessness in the context of COVID-19
'Pandenizen'
A portmanteau of 'pandemic' and 'denizen'
Intended to reflect the status of those experiencing homelessness as both sub-citizens and their experience as a population frequenting the perilous frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.
MAKE LIVE OR LET DIE?
For those in Australia experiencing homelessness and abject poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic, inaction on behalf of the Government is a form of biopolitical violence.
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Despite what many think, homelessness is not a moral failing on behalf of the individual. It is the result of a myriad of structural issues built upon the back of a profit-hungry economic system which prioritises privatisation and devalues welfare protections.
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The stigmatism homeless people face as a result of neoliberal ideologies of ownership and individualised blame pushes them to the margins of society where their very status as human beings is questioned.
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The issue of homelessness is obviously not going away so long as profit is the driving force of politics. Numbers increase every year, and will surely boom with the economic fallout of the Covid shutdown.
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So the question remains, will the authorities make the vulnerable live, or let them die?
THE FACTS
Statistics from Homelessness Australia, the ABS Census of Housing and Population (2016), and the AIHW Specialist Homeless Services data collection.
HOMELESSNESS ISN'T JUST ABOUT NOT HAVING A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD
Homelessness is defined under Australian federal law as inadequate access to safe and secure housing.* Housing is deemed inadequate when it:
Has the potential to damage a person’s health
Threatens their safety
Does not provide access to adequate personal amenities, or the normal social and economic support of a regular home
Places the person in circumstances where the safety, security, and affordability of that housing is affected adversely
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*According to the Supported Accommodation Assistance Act 1994 (Cth), s 4(1) & (2)
Image credit to StreetSmart
IT HAS MANY DIFFERENT FORMS
Contrary to stereotypes and popular opinion, homelessness is not limited to sleeping on the streets. The experience of homelessness extends to those who are living:
In speciality homeless shelters/ youth refuges
Between houses/ with family or friends (couch surfing)
In boarding houses
In accommodation that is explicitly temporary or precarious
In severely overcrowded dwellings (defined as a house requiring at least 4 more rooms to accommodate all occupants, accounting for the fact that people can share rooms).
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All these are conducive to outbreaks of disease
AND IT AFFECTS SOME GROUPS MORE THAN OTHERS
On the night of the 2016 Census, 116,437 Australians reported experiencing homelessness- that's 1 in 200 (a 14% increase from 2011- outpacing the 8.8% growth in population). Out of this 116,437:
Indigenous Australians are severely overrepresented. Despite making up only 3% of the population, they account for 20% of the homeless population (that's 1 in every 30)
Migrants born overseas make up 28% of the Australian population, yet account for almost half (46%) of those experiencing homelessness
58% are younger than 34, with those aged 19-24 being the biggest demographic
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Image credit to UNSW
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT'S ADVICE IS TO 'STAY HOME', HOW CAN THOSE WITHOUT ONE BE EXPECTED TO COPE?
VULNERABILITY
It is impossible for those experiencing homelessness to follow the Australian Government’s Covid-19 guidelines in a meaningful way, and yet they are amongst the most likely to be exposed to it, and the most at risk of death should they contract it.
The environments in which homeless people take shelter are already conducive to outbreaks of disease and illness due to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Without reliable access to basic amenities with which to maintain their personal hygiene (such as a shower and place to wash their hands) and the gear which would prevent virus transmission (like masks and hand sanitiser) people experiencing homelessness are sitting ducks for contracting Covid-19 (Tsai & Wilson: 2020).
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Similarly, for those experiencing homelessness, social distancing is nearly impossible too. Not only on the streets, but in shelters and accommodation, and especially for the 46% of the population living in severely overcrowded dwellings. What social distancing those who are sleeping rough can achieve is social stigma magnified to absurdity, as those who avoided them by default now keep a cartoonish distance (Middendorp: 2020). Social distancing in general adds to the psychological and emotional burdens of isolation that are felt intensely and every day by the members of a community which is already likely to be suffering from feelings of loneliness, mental illness, and psycho-social disabilities.
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Lacking access to health care and knowledge of symptoms, having pre-existing health issues related to drug and alcohol addiction, and the effects of premature aging caused by the debilitating nature of being homeless put them in extreme danger of death should the virus be contracted (Homelessness Australia: 2020, Lima et al.: 2020). Rough sleepers already have reduced life expectancies, with those aged younger than 65 years (93% according to the 2016 Census) having a mortality rate 5-10 times higher than the general population (Tsai & Wilson: 2020, ABS: 2016).
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These comorbidities involved in experiencing homelessness multiply the risks and the consequences of contracting Covid-19 exponentially, yet this is everyday life for the homeless population. Invisibility, precarity, marginalization, dehumanization.
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How is this humane?
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Why are citizens permitted to suffer like this?
HOMELESSNESS IS NOT A PERSONAL FAILURE, IT IS AN INSTITUTIONAL FEATURE
EXCLUSION
Above is an image of hostile architecture in Sydney’s CBD. The armrests are designed to prevent people from laying down on the bench and are spaced apart at a length so that only one individual can sit at a time. This is just one of countless instances of insidious design choices intended to control and regulate the bodies of people in public spaces, designs so targeted towards the homeless that they are also called ‘anti-homeless architecture’.
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Aspects of public spaces becoming systematically designed to deter those stuck on the streets from interacting with them is a form of biopolitical control- not unlike the extensive and invasive welfare and public housing system which seeks to regulate the lives and behaviour of those in poverty and experiencing homelessness (Willse: 2010).
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Conditional welfare and housing, being contingent on finding a job or being drug tested for example, highlights the oversight of the political economy of homelessness. The neoliberal meritocratic focus on personal responsibility ignores the structural issues which result in someone becoming homeless in the first place and does nothing to alleviate the situation or prevent it from recurring.
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Issues like inter-generational poverty (often going hand in hand with institutional racism and the continuing effects of colonisation), domestic violence, ever-increasing housing unaffordability (in line with stagnant wages and employment precarity), and increasing privatisation driving up the cost of living create a poverty pit into which any member of the working class can fall (Muir et al.: 2018).
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Those in overcrowded and inadequate housing are all but invisible to the public eye and to the welfare system, but those without homes at all are categorised socially as not ‘useful’ based upon the assumption that they cannot (or will not) work or ‘contribute to society’ (De Oliveira: 2018, Bullen: 2015).
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And further, because we live in an ownership society, where private homeownership and economic contribution are the benchmarks of citizenship, those who don’t meet this threshold are not only demonised morally, they are excluded from the public sphere both physically and politically (Schram: 2006, Arnold: 2004).
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In this sense, the homeless population embody a modern Homo Sacer (the accursed man), a figure explored by Agamben (1998) who is rejected from society and may be killed by anyone, but not sacrificed. In the context of neoliberal welfare austerity, those experiencing homelessness are punished by political practices and silenced in the political arena (Schram: 2006, De Oliveira: 2018, Arnold: 2004).
In the context of Covid-19, they are left to die.
"More than 160,000 Australians are now waiting for public or Indigenous housing due to the economic fallout of COVID-19"
-Kate Colvin
Head of the 'Everybody's Home' Campaign
POST COVID?
(Image credit: David Moir/AAP)
The Covid-19 pandemic has not only made life even more dangerous for the current homeless population, but it has also set to increase the amount of those homeless exponentially.
Since the first Census in 2001, the number of homeless people in Australia has grown each year (outstripping population). Now, swaths of people in precarious labour have lost their jobs due to shutdowns and are unable to afford private housing, and domestic violence instances have increased on an unprecedented scale (the two primary reasons recorded by the Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) in 2018 for individuals seeking their assistance) (Neil: 2020, Muir et al.: 2018).
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Leading into the lockdowns some 7,000 rough sleepers in the capital cities of Australia were offered rooms in hotels, motels, and empty student accommodation, effectively proving that homelessness is a social construction that could potentially be ended at any time. In NSW, 100 people have been successfully transitioned into permanent housing since April alone, when the state usually only manages 200 in a whole year (Knight: 2020). While some states have decided to continue this scheme (such as Victoria), others are returning the rough sleepers to the streets as restrictions are lifted.
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A University of Queensland study estimating savings of upwards of $13,000 a year per person taken off the street, as they will suffer fewer health problems and will have less trouble with the law (Knight: 2020). But despite this, the Federal Government’s 2021-2022 budget includes a $32 million cut in funding from the homelessness sector. Accounting for population growth, just to remain equal to the already inadequate budget of $1.43 billion, funding should have risen to $1.65 billion (Homelessness Australia: 2020). This is not even accounting for the more than 160,000 previously income insecure Australians who are now waiting for public housing- a wait list up to ten years long- as well as the countless others who will be forced into precarious housing as a result of Covid-19 (Borys: 2020, Muir: 2018).
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If the Australian government doesn’t do something substantial to alleviate the burdens and risks of experiencing homelessness now that they have become so stark during this global pandemic, and that demand for housing has increased exponentially with the failure of the economy, then they are not even simply putting profits over people. They are directly signalling that they choose to let those who fail to be profitable die.
IF YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW, IS AT RISK OF/Â IS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS, YOU CAN FIND HELP AT:
1800RESPECT
1800 737 732
Australia's national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.
(7 days a week, 24 hours a day)
LINK2HOME
1800 152 152
Emergency and overnight accommodation and support services
(7 days a week, 24 hours a day)
Click the link above
The A to Z directory of homelessness help
Click the link above or call: 13 11 14
National crisis support hotline
(7 days a week, 24 hours a day)