NSW contemplates mandatory coronial reporting of homelessness deaths as part of policy rethink

Unlike the UK and parts of North America, no Australian government counts homelessness deaths. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

The New South Wales government will consider reforms to begin monitoring homelessness deaths after a major Guardian investigation earlier this month.

In a potentially nation-leading shift, the NSW housing minister, Rose Jackson, will consider mandating the coronial reporting of homelessness deaths as part of a broader push to strengthen reporting and monitoring in its upcoming homelessness strategy.

Mandatory coronial reporting would give the state visibility over most – but not all – cases where someone experiencing homelessness has died.

Homelessness groups, including Victoria’s Council to Homeless Persons, are urging other states to adopt the same measure to better understand the drivers of premature and preventable death, formulate appropriate policy responses and improve accountability.

“It is time to make a change,” Jackson told the Guardian. “We know the current system is not working.

“Our priority is to restore a system with dignity to do everything we can to create better support services for vulnerable people, with a priority to shift from a crisis response to a focus on prevention.”

The Homelessness NSW chief executive, Dominique Rowe, said the lack of data on homelessness deaths was making it “hard to determine who is dying, when and where”.

“Homelessness NSW welcomes the minister’s commitment to strengthen the reporting and monitoring of homelessness,” Rowe said. “We would support mandating the reporting of homelessness deaths to the coroner, while acknowledging this would not be a silver bullet.”

Guardian Australia earlier this year investigated more than 600 homelessness deaths, finding an average age at death of 44, and identifying widespread failings in the housing, health and justice sector that were contributing to the shocking life expectancy gap. The findings were broadly in line with localised studies by Home2Health in Perth, Macquarie University in Sydney, and St Vincent’s hospital in Melbourne.

No government in Australia counts homelessness deaths, unlike the United Kingdom and parts of Canada and the United States.

The Council to Homeless Persons, which has taken a lead role in highlighting homelessness deaths in recent years, has previously warned a lack of reporting and data has left Australia blind to the issue.

In a 2019 report, the CHP said localised studies and international research suggested those experiencing homelessness had extreme health inequalities, elevated mortality ratios, reduced life expectancy, and a “three-to-seven-fold chance of dying prematurely”.

The CHP wrote to the Victorian homelessness minister attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, earlier this month, urging her to adopt mandatory coronial reporting.

The Victorian government is yet to respond but the housing minister, Harriet Shing, was asked about the Guardian’s investigation more broadly in parliament on Tuesday.

“We have here in Victoria supported the largest number of homelessness support services and expenditure in comparison to other jurisdictions,” Shing said. “Does that mean that we have done all we need to do? No. Does that mean that we understand what does work and what can work to alleviate those pressures? Yes.”

Mandating coronial reporting of homelessness deaths would require police, healthcare workers and other emergency services to report a death to the state coroner for examination, where there is evidence of homelessness. Such evidence is sometimes obscured or not evident to police and health professionals, a problem that would limit the measure’s effectiveness to some degree.

CHP’s chief executive, Deborah Di Natale, said her organisation had become aware of up to two more deaths of people experiencing homelessness since it wrote to Symes asking for mandatory reporting.

“How many more people will die while we wait for a response?” she said.

“We simply cannot end up with a situation in which the death of someone experiencing homelessness in NSW is reported to the coroner, while a Victorian death isn’t.”

“Once again, we call on the attorney-general to make a humane decision which will arm us with the information we need to fix these unacceptable deaths.”

In 2021, the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness called on the federal government to commission the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to create a reporting framework for the consistent reporting of homelessness deaths by police, coroners and healthcare workers. It says it was ignored by the former federal government.

The AIHW told the Guardian it is now engaged in a project to better capture deaths among Australians experiencing homelessness.

That project will link national data for all clients of specialist homelessness services to data on deaths in Australia, allowing cause of death and mortality to be measured.

The project will treat the deaths of rough sleepers as a “high priority” and the AIHW expects findings to be available later this year.

“The project will help governments to better understand mortality among a broader group of people experiencing unstable housing, particularly, when people last interacted with agencies prior to their death,” a spokesperson said.

“The project will also join data from Specialist Drug and Alcohol Treatment Services, Medicare and PBS data to understand mortality among specific vulnerable groups and their service use, particularly of primary health care services and prescription use, prior to death.”

Jackson said the NSW government would explore “every option to strengthen reporting and monitoring” as it develops its new homelessness strategy.

“Recommendations from homelessness organisations working on the ground are welcome and encouraged, and we will look at incorporating as much of this work as possible into the strategy,” she said.