More Australians are dying while facing homelessness – and they’re dying younger, often in their 30s to early 50s, according to new data. Source: SBS News.
Some 14,000 people accessing specialist homelessness services – agencies that provide services to respond to or prevent homelessness – died in the decade to 2023, according to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare analysis.
The annual death toll rose from 914 to 1,459 over the same period – nearly a 60 per cent increase.
Almost half (45 per cent) of those deaths were in people aged 35-54, while about one in eight (1,700 in total) were people aged 25-34 and one in 77 (180 total) were children under 14.
The median age of death in Australia is 82, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. But the AIHW found, among those accessing homelessness services, the median age at death was 55 – 27 years younger.
The disparity was even greater for people sleeping rough. Their median age at death was 47, similar to those experiencing other forms of homelessness.
Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin said many of these deaths are avoidable.
She described the prevalence of death by suicide or overdosing as “devastatingly common” among those experiencing homelessness and for rough sleepers.
Ms Colvin said a key factor exacerbating these avoidable deaths is a lack of affordable social housing.
While the federal government has committed to building 1.2 million homes by 2029 to achieve the National Housing Accord target, homeless people, and in particular youth, are struggling to access stable housing.
Specialist homelessness services supported around 280,000 people in 2023–24, with almost half of unaccompanied young people aged 15-24 seeking help still experiencing homelessness when their support ended. Unaccompanied refers to a person not living with a parent or guardian (if under 18) or living along (aged 18-24).
Social housing dwellings made up only 4.1 per cent of all households in 2024, a decrease from 4.8 per cent in 2011, according to AIHW data released this month.
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Dead before 50: The Australians dying young at the edge of the system (SBS News)
