SWSP6033: Social Work Theory and Practice

SWSP6033: Social Work Theory and Practice (Individual and Families)
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Assessment 1
Introduction
A literature review on the Australian homeless and the issues arising from gender biasness is
going to be provided that closely discusses the many problems it has caused around the globe
in many countries and how they have taken a heavy toll on their respective economies. Much
emphasis has been put on the Australian context of the issues, to analyse and develop a
greater understanding of the present scenario regarding these issues in the country. The
homelessness of many people has brought about many difficulties for the Australian
government in their internal affairs, as such people have not been able to contribute anything
in the economy (Mishaxhiu, 2022). The literature pieces are to discern such information and
look into it critically to develop understanding and form recommendations as to how the
social workers could work around it to safeguard such people suffering from homelessness
and being prone to gender biasness of the society.
In this literature review facts are going to be presented to better understand the situation of
both the predominant issues at a layman level. The various articles and literary pieces taken
in this writing for discussing and reviewing are going to show if there are inconsistent
patterns in the approaches towards solving it and various takes regarding the subject matter.
Social workers often need to have a clear understanding and formulate ways to help in these
issues and bridge the gaps between the authority and the needy to be of use to each other.
Thus having a firm understanding of the cultural and traditional values related to the people
of the country is a must in order to help them with making them feel anxious and cause
misunderstandings. Also, the argument is to present a new perspective for the social workers
to try and opt for it, in dealing with families going through such troubles.
Literature Review
In Australia the major headache or the main dominant reason behind homeless people is
domestic violence in an average Australian family. Such abuse in the family has resulted in a
chunk of women getting homeless accounting for 50 percent of the total cases along with
children. One such instance being the recent case of Naomi who is a 45 years old woman of
indigenous background. Her story revealed that the families of the indigenous people,
especially women, face a higher rate of domestic violence than the non- indigenous women
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of Australia. “My homelessness is directly related to domestic violence, because I would just
up and leave. '' These were her exact words coming out from the experience.
Currently residing in Queensland she came out and spoke of the daily horrors while living
those moments when her family would go through such acts of abuse everyday, the main
trigger behind it all being alcohol intoxication. And that it was not just her father but also her
mother who would go crazy after getting drunk. She was not able to understand why things
had to be that way (Bullen, 2015). But interestingly enough another information was found
soon that her mother was part of the "stolen generations" who were taken away from their
families forcibly to non indigenous missions by nuns and faced physical and mental abuse.
This could be seen as a good insight to why there is such a higher increase in family abuse
among the indigenous communities of Australia. The scars left in their hearts and minds are
too deep to recover thus making the tensions running high in the homes of indigenous
households leading to the newer generation to get out of their houses unable to tackle the
abuse everyday.
And this is just one such story giving evidence to the relevance to the topic of homelessness.
Although violence is the biggest instigator of such consequence, there are definitely other
issues that play a certain part in homeless people in the Australian streets, those being a
financially weak family, or lack of proper education could also be prime causes leading to
homeless people in Australia (Benjaminsen, 2016). While there is quite a proportion of men
being homeless and living a rugged life out there on streets, women's conditions are far
worse, due to often having to leave their homes with children in order to protect them from
being raised in an abusive environment that might scar them permanently, but this makes the
life of women more difficult on the streets thus opting for staying in hostels and friends
places as they are more safer options.
The main takeaway from this may be that women as compared to men are not that commonly
recognized as "homeless" as the home term suggests. But their form of homelessness is more
of a disguised nature and in reality accounts for over 50 percent of the total homeless people
of the country. So one could say that there is clearly a gender bias as to portraying men to be
the most prone to getting homeless in the country (Mishaxhiu, 2022). Also such examples
may be found around the world, since there are not enough women living in the streets they
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