Intergenerational homelessness and the intergenerational use of homelessness services

This report aims to improve our understanding of intergenerational homelessness and the intergenerational use of homelessness services.

The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has produced this Positioning Paper which seeks to examine the patterns and determinants of intergenerational homelessness and homelessness service-use in Australia, and the role and impact of service delivery and policy interventions designed to avert or break the cycle of homelessness across generations.

A significant research literature exists on the intergenerational transmission of poverty, family violence, and substance abuse. Much of this literature suggests that intergenerational discontinuities are as prevalent, if not more so, than intergenerational continuities, emphasizing that explanations need to be found for scontinuities as well as discontinuities (see Rutter, 1998). There is also an emerging literature on the effects of homelessness on children. However, there is a paucity of evidence on intergenerational homelessness itself, both in Australia and overseas.

Intergenerational homelessness occurs when homelessness is repeated in recurrent generations of the same family. In other words, it occurs when an individual who experiences homelessness in their own right has one or more parents who were also (or are) homeless at some point in their lives. It may well happen that both generations experience homelessness together as a result of the family unit becoming homeless, children being placed in care because of their parents’ homelessness and inability to care for their children, or when mothers escape domestic violence with their children.

Source: communityNet