Australian homelessness increases during the pandemic, says report
December 7, 2021, 1:12 am

Australian homelessness increases during the pandemic, says report

Homelessness-Homeless man/Pixabay

The Xinhua reported, Australian homelessness has increased during the pandemic despite a drop during the first wave of infection.

It said that Homelessness Australia on Tuesday published an analysis of federal government data on the number of Australians requiring homelessness support.

It found that in May 2020, when the government doubled the JobSeeker welfare payment in response to widespread lockdowns, the number fell 5 percent from 91,672 to 87,301.

However, with JobSeeker payment now wound back to 620 Australian dollars (437.1 U.S. dollars) a fortnight, a slight increase from 566 Australian dollars (399 U.S. dollars) prior to the pandemic, the number of people claiming homelessness support in May 2021 increased to 93,726.

Australia-Melbourne-Richmond/Pixabay

Jenny Smith, chair of Homelessness Australia, called for a permanent JobSeeker increase to 966 Australian dollars (681.1 U.S. dollars) a fortnight, equalling 69 Australian dollars (48.6 U.S. dollars) a day.

She told Nine Entertainment newspapers: "The sector has been saying for years now that increasing income support would reduce homelessness, and now we have the evidence that proves it."

"The federal government knows what it needs to do. If it raises the rate of JobSeeker for good, then far fewer people would find themselves without a home.

"There's still an opportunity for that to happen because we will probably need more economic stimulus coming out of the pandemic."

The federal government has ruled out a more significant increase, arguing that a rate too high could incentivize unemployment.

A spokesperson for federal Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said a permanent increase to 1,115 Australian dollars would cost an additional 81 billion Australian dollars (57.1 billion U.S. dollars) over the next four years.

They said: "Our focus now is reopening the economy and supporting Australians into work because we know that for every person we get in a job, they are better off and the country is better off."

Source: xinhua

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BENEFIT, the Kingdom’s innovator and leading company in Fintech and electronic financial transactions service, has sponsored the BuildHer CityHack 2025 Hackathon, a two-day event spearheaded by the College of Engineering and Technology at the Royal University for Women (RUW).
Aimed at secondary school students, the event brought together a distinguished group of academic professionals and technology experts to mentor and inspire young participants.
More than 100 high school students from across the Kingdom of Bahrain took part in the hackathon, which featured an intensive programme of training workshops and hands-on sessions. These activities were tailored to enhance participants’ critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and team-building capabilities, while also encouraging the development of practical and sustainable solutions to contemporary challenges using modern technological tools.
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