Briefs

For people with a safe and secure home to self-isolate in, reducing the impact from the coronavirus is stressful enough, but for Australian residents and visitors, such as stranded backpackers,  who are experiencing homelessness, the situation is very acute. In particular, people who are sleeping rough, that is living a place not designed for habitation such as a park, derelict building or car, are vulnerable to respiratory infections during normal times.

The key response across the world to the COVID-19 pandemic is for people to ‘stay at home’ with social distancing the most important factor in reducing the spread of the infection. When people can isolate themselves at home, they reduce their chance of coming into contact with anybody who may have the virus (as it appears probable people may be infected but not yet show symptoms), however the health and social benefits of safe, secure and affordable housing are not available to all Australians.

The recent extended bushfire season across Australia has affected people living in rural and remote areas in many different ways: from having to evacuate from their home, to missing work when fire closes down local businesses, to the disaster of having their home and possessions destroyed by fire, to the health risks of living with bushfire smoke for long periods of time.

The recent Western Australian Government report ‘Levelling the playing field' (2019) into the impact of short-term rentals (STR) such as AirBnB in Western Australia shows the conflicted nature such housing ‘sharing’ strategies bring to the local community.

The Australian bushfires of spring and summer 2019–20 have had a terrible cost in lives lost and homes destroyed. The scale of the burning is estimated at the end of January 2020 as around 5.3 million hectares in NSW (and ACT); 2.5 million hectares in Queensland; 2.1 million hectares in Western Australia; 1.5 million hectares in Victoria; 485,000 hectares in South Australia; and 36,000 hectares in Tasmania.