The Western Australian government’s proposed forced closure of up to 150 Aboriginal communities has again highlighted the issue of Aboriginal homelessness.

Most of the communities targeted for closure are in the Kimberley region, which has the highest rate of homelessness in Australia. The 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Counting Homelessness report found that almost 7 percent of Aboriginal people living in the region were homeless.

The 2011 census estimates that approximately 25 percent of all homeless are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

According to one of the authors of the 2006 ABS report, professor Chris Chamberlain, the problem is in reality much bigger than the official figures indicate. In an interview published in the West Australianseveral years ago, Chamberlain explained: “Whereas people from European backgrounds in crisis situations who stay with extended family might report being homeless, most indigenous people won’t”.

Activist and suicide prevention researcher Gerry Georgatos told Red Flag that state and federal governments played a direct role in the creation of Aboriginal homelessness by failing to properly fund and support Aboriginal communities and homelands.

Georgatos said that governments had “degraded the communities for more than 20 or 30 years”, neglecting them and failing to spend on housing or health. “The poverty and homelessness faced by Aboriginal communities is not of their making, it is the making of governments”, he said.