A person-centred approach to a systemic problem.
The tool: By-Name List
To end rough sleeping, we need to know how many people are experiencing this form of homelessness and what they need to find and sustain a permanent home.
The By-Name List is a person-centred approach to ending rough-sleeping.
It’s a simple process with a powerful impact: outreach workers go to meet each person sleeping rough in our community. They learn their name, who they are and what they need, and then bring services together to help them find permanent housing.
The By-Name List uses this approach to bring the sector together around a shared understanding of rough sleeping, to create a fairer city for all.
When someone is added to the By-Name List by outreach and frontline staff in a local government area, each organisation working in that community then has the same understanding of that person’s needs. This forms the basis for coordinating the right support, resources, and monitoring until that person is housed.
Most people we meet through the By-Name List have experienced chronic homelessness for an average of 8 to 15 years. Since Melbourne’s first By-Name List began in 2019, more than 500 people have been housed.
The framework: Advance to Zero
The Advance to Zero (AtoZ) framework is a methodology developed by the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness to confront the nation's homelessness crisis.
Using a housing-first approach, underpinned by the real-time data the By-Name List provides, Advance to Zero provides a clear path toward ending rough sleeping.
By bringing all parts of the sector together the AtoZ framework represents the best foot forward in the work to end rough sleeping across Australia.
The methodology is being implemented across Australia to create a cohesive and transparent system that works to support all organisations that work to end homelessness.
The end-goal of Advance to Zero is to achieve and maintain functional zero homelessness across all of Australia.
The goal: functional zero
Functional Zero is achieved when any experience of homelessness in the community is rare, brief, and once-off. To achieve this requires enough appropriate housing for people entering homelessness to rapidly move into, and support to remain there as long as they need.
The By-Name List is an essential piece of infrastructure in the Advance to Zero journey toward its ultimate goal: functional zero homelessness.
As George Hatvani from Launch Housing explains: “By-Name Lists mean we get a real time picture of what’s happening on the ground and the scale of it. We get to know everyone by name and understand their needs so we can provide an integrated service response."
The By-Name List enables providers to allocate resources to those who need them most. As Hatvani says, the list "enables us to focus on these highly vulnerable, highly marginalised people and go, ‘right, what are the system barriers and system gaps for them?’”
Since 2019, when Melbourne's first By-Name List was established, more than 500 people have been housed. We know this because of the service coordination made possible by the By-Name List in each of the Zero projects across our city.
These results are especially remarkable given that most people we meet through the By-Name List have experienced chronic homelessness for 8 to 15 years or more.
Progress toward zero
Today, 7 of Melbourne’s 31 local councils are onboard, each running their own By-Name List. As more councils join the movement, we’re building a near real-time view of the number, names and needs of people across our city who are sleeping rough, enabling the right supports to be wrapped around each person to connect them to the housing they need. While more affordable housing supply is the key, By-Name Lists open the door to zero rough sleeping across Melbourne.
See how Melbourne's LGAs are progressing toward zero here