Homelessness

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (14:45): I thank the minister for her response. Again, I reiterate my question about the number of people sleeping rough in South Australia tonight. Can the minister provide this chamber with the total number of people who are sleeping rough in South Australia versus the total number of public and private rentals available? If the minister is not in a position to provide that information today, will she give this chamber an undertaking that she will provide an update in due course?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:46): In terms of rough sleepers, the data that we have relates to the CBD, which is the Adelaide Zero Project, which the honourable member is quite familiar with. They do a monthly tally. It has actually gone down for the month of March. It was 204 and it has gone down to 196 on that list. We may well have a statewide figure, if I can find that for the honourable member very quickly. It wouldn't be point in time, however, as there are people who move in and out of the system quite regularly.

The number of homeless people that we have in South Australia is generally not just considered those who are rough sleepers but people who are in other forms of homelessness, which includes temporary accommodation such as shelters or indeed people who might be couch surfing and the like. Generally speaking, in South Australia we quote that there are 6,000 at any one time across the state.

I know that some people get very excited about vacancy rates in the public housing system. It is worth pointing out that there is a range of reasons why there are vacant properties, such as they are already under offer to someone or there is some maintenance being done such as painting for people to ensure that it's properly tenantable, and then there may be other more serious issues such as a roof needs to be fixed and the like.

Point-in-time data is not necessarily that useful because there is a range of reasons why houses are considered on the vacancy list, which means that they are not actually available to rent to people. But it's a moving feast and there is a lot of flux in that space.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Simms has a supplementary.