The pervasiveness of homelessness, both in Australia and abroad, has led to concerted efforts to understand its causes and to develop effective policies and programs that provide short and long-term supportive housing solutions to rebuild lives. Existing research feeding into policy priorities has identified a number of sub-groups that need to be targeted, including Indigenous Australians, young and older homeless Australians, and persons exiting State care, juvenile justice, other correctional facilities or medical or psychiatric facilities (FaHCSIA, 2008). However, to date, sexual orientation, sex and gender identity minorities have not been identified as a key target group for direct policy and practice intervention.

Whilst there is mounting evidence that the risk of and potential consequences of homelessness among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is heightened compared to the general population, there has been limited systematic research in Australia that can inform a more targeted response. Bletsas and Oakley (2013, p. 4) note Australia lags behind similarly advanced democracies in developing research, policy and best practice in the area of LGBTI homelessness. Major gaps in Australia include research on older LGBTI adults’ experiences of homelessness, national datasets, longitudinal studies, comparisons between sub-groups, comparisons between rural/regional and urban areas, and the development of best practice guidelines.

• This report documents the first stage of a mixed methods research study examining the experience of homelessness among LGBTI people. The overarching aims of this project are to:
• Identify major contributors and pathways into and out of homelessness for LGBTI people;
• Investigate their experiences of current homelessness service provision;  Look at current practice (including data collection) and best practice for homelessness services to be LGBTI inclusive; and
• Make the project findings available to influence homelessness and mental health policy initiatives, services, and training on specific issues for LGBTI people

The research approach we adopted is exploratory in nature. It combines descriptive analysis of secondary data sources (i.e. the Journeys Home longitudinal survey (Bevitt et al., 2013) and the General Social Survey (GSS) (ABS 2014)), and qualitative interviews with homelessness service providers and LGBTI people with experience of homelessness. Journeys Home and the GSS were selected because they provide, in our assessment, the best available measures of sexual identity and homelessness in the one dataset.

For the purposes of this first report, we present primarily cross sectional findings, except where indicated, from the first stage descriptive analysis of the Journeys Home survey. We also include an overview of the qualitative data obtained from interviews with service providers. The Swinburne-based research team were responsible for the quantitative analyses. Qualitative interviews and analysis were undertaken by the University of Melbourne based research team.

In a second stage report scheduled for July 2017 we will provide more detailed analysis of longitudinal patterns from Journeys Home as well as a profile from the General Social Survey. We will also include analysis from the interviews with LGBTI people.