Themes
Language, kinship and heritage
Language revitalisation and education
Conference Papers
Session HO1: Research from historical and current policy context. Homelessness, housing careers, status and challenges
1. Sharon Delmege: Aboriginal Housing in Perth: from camp life to suburbia
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow 
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Abstract
As part of an apology to indigenous Australians, on February 13 2008, the Rudd government announced that improving Aboriginal housing was a national priority and fundamental to the success of its “Close the Gap” policy to improve living standards. This paper shows that the current housing ‘crisis’ is part of a longstanding, chronic problem that was created by a controlled neglect. It is an historical account of the physical and social characteristics of camp life and the shift to suburbia that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. It specifically focuses on the metropolitan area of Perth and south-western towns in Western Australia to show that although Aboriginal camps existed in the metropolitan area of Perth until the 1960s, Aborigines were routinely treated as a ‘nuisance’ and quite invisible in terms of any housing policy or funding until 1953: policy was still hopelessly under-funded in the late 1970s and has been playing catch up ever since.
Author bio
Sharon Delmege lectures at Murdoch University in the school of Media Communication and Culture and Coordinates the unit World Indigenous Knowledges. She has written on the social and economic trans-generational impact of The Aborigines Act 1905 on Nyungars in the twentieth century, and is currently researching Aboriginal camps and housing policy in WA. Her research interests also include looking at the links between cultural politics and journalism.
2. R. Phillips & V. Milligan: What are appropriate housing service models for Indigenous households in urban areas?
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow 83KB
Abstract
This paper concerns a new research project funded by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) that is investigating models of service delivery for urbanised Indigenous households in Australia. The main aim of the research is to develop principles and practical guidance about ways of delivering housing services that are effective and culturally appropriate, in the context of significant changes that have been taking place in the respective roles of mainstream agencies and Indigenous- managed organisations in delivering social housing. The research is being carried out over the period mid 2009 to mid 2010. The paper will describe the methods that are proposed for the study and give an overview of literature that has been reviewed on culturally appropriate service delivery. To assist the researchers, the knowledge of conference participants of innovative models of service delivery in housing and their views about how to gather evidence about good practice will be sought.
Author bios:
Rhonda Phillips is an established researcher with the Queensland AHURI Research Centre. Prior to joining the Centre, Rhonda had 25 years’ experience in social housing policy, management and research and has significant expertise in the area of Indigenous housing policy and service delivery. Between 1996 and 2005, as an executive in the Queensland Department of Housing, Rhonda’s responsibilities at times included policy and service delivery reforms in Indigenous and community housing. Her expertise in Indigenous affairs was recognized by the Queensland Government in 2007 when she was appointed to the Board of the newly created Palm Island Community Company which is a new initiative created through a partnership between the state government and Palm Island Council to improve the delivery of services to Palm islanders
Vivienne Milligan is an Associate Professor in the City Futures Research Centre University of New South Wales, where she conducts policy relevant housing research. Her current research interests include comparing national housing policies, innovation in affordable housing, governing rental housing systems and the development of culturally appropriate models of housing provision. Previously Vivienne worked for over twenty years in strategic policy and program development in government housing agencies. In the 1990s, she worked with Aboriginal leaders in NSW to establish the Aboriginal Housing Office, as a statutory agency governed by Aboriginal people with responsibility for the delivery of housing services to Aboriginal communities through both government and non government organisations.
3. Chris Birdsall-Jones. The Role of Indigenous Mobility Patterns in Indigenous Homelessness
Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow 1015KB
Abstract
One of the most strongly held features of Indigenous culture and identity is the obligation of kinfolk to look after one another. Those who might otherwise be absolutely homeless will often find accommodation with kinfolk. In this way, homelessness within the Indigenous community is ‘hidden’. The obligation of kinfolk to look after one another is expressed in patterns of mobility within Indigenous family communities. There are important differences among types of homelessness and associated mobility patterns which may be culturally or socially legitimated or not legitimated at all within Indigenous society. This paper concerns the relationship between Indigenous homelessness, household overcrowding and patterns of mobility. It draws on the results of semi-structured interviews conducted with Indigenous homeless people and service providers in Broome, Carnarvon and Perth in Western Australia.
Author bio:
Dr. Chris Birdsall-Jones is a research fellow at the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy at the Curtin University of Technology. Her doctorate was an ethnography of Aboriginal women in the towns and cities of Western Australia. She has also worked in the fields of native title and the anthropology of health. Chris’s current research focuses on issues connected with Indigenous housing, and since joining the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy in 2007 she has conducted several major research projects funded by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. These projects concern Indigenous housing histories, homelessness, home ownership, and housing impacts of the mining boom on Indigenous communities. At the moment she is conducting field research in connection with a project on housing policy innovations in response to Indigenous mobility. Examples of her recent research output are available on the AHURI website at (http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/authors.asp ).