Abstract:

The Assistance with Care and Housing and for Aged (ACHA) Program is a pilot program funded by the Commonwealth and running until June 1996. The target group for the program is low income frail elderly people in insecure housing. Insecure housing has been interpreted in the program as incorporating public housing through to homelessness. The program provides grants to housing and community service providers for support workers to assist to target group to remain living in the community. Projects may be 'on-site', generally focusing on one or buildings (such as large private hotels or a public housing complex) with a concentration of the target group. They may be 'outreach' and be identifying people in need in a specified geographical area or they may be a combination project containing both on-site and outreach elements. ACHA assistance may involve housing relocation and/or support to access community care services and reduce social isolation. The aim is to achieve a stable housing and support situation for clients so that they avoid premature entry into a hostel. The results of the evaluation indicate that the ACHA program to date has performed well against most of the 19 performance indicators. 80% of clients have had positive outcomes from an ACHA worker's assistance. This may actually be a conservative 'snapshot' result as the ACHA workers' efforts with many of the other clients were not completed. The kind of assistance provided by ACHA projects does not lend itself easily to unit cost measures. The closest indicator is the funding cost to the ACHA program per client assisted. Assistance to a client can vary enormously in its complexity from a complete housing relocation through to arranging neighbour aid services within the same accommodation. Bearing in mind these qualifications the average cost per person assisted by the project ranges from $196 to $1829 with an average across all projects of $649. The duration of this assistance ranges from 3 months to 10 months.