James will be presenting his PhD mid-term seminar on the dynamics of housing and homelessness. In recent decades, research has revealed and sought to investigate the dynamic and often episodic nature of housing and homelessness among disadvantaged populations. Difficulties in identifying and defining homelessness however, and the fragmentation of information across different datasets, has prevented a full appreciation of the incidence and pathways to and from different forms of homelessness. This seminar will set out an approach to address this shortcoming, utilising multistate demographic techniques  as applied to several Australian datasets. Progress to date will be presented on analysing spatial patterns and drivers of different forms of homelessness, developing a demographic life table approach to estimating the incidence of homelessness and analysing the role of public and private housing support in preventing housing loss. Findings suggest that homelessness and housing deprivation is a common but diverse experience embedded within the at times volatile housing pathways of disadvantaged populations.

James O'Donnell is a PhD Candidate in the School of Demography at the Australian National University. His research is focused on the application of multistate demographic techniques to analyse and understand the population dynamics associated with social phenomena such as housing and labour market transitions, homelessness, poverty and family formation and dissolution.