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Chapter 6. Legal assistance services in NSW

The discussion to this point has indicated that homeless people in NSW:

• are a diverse, highly mobile group of individuals and families, often with complex needs, living in a range of circumstances statewide (Chapter 3)
• tend to have multiple and interrelated legal issues, including civil, family and criminal issues (Chapter 4)
• face a range of barriers to addressing these issues, which may result in the legal issues remaining unaddressed until multiple issues compound and/or a crisis point is reached (Chapter 5).

These observations have significant implications for the nature and type of legal assistance which is appropriate for homeless people in this State. Accordingly, this chapter discusses three broad topics:

• the legal assistance available to homeless people in NSW
• challenges faced by legal assistance services in helping homeless clients
• features of legal assistance services that can increase their accessibility and utility to homeless people.