‘To get out is an absolute struggle’: landmark study sheds light on Australians sleeping rough

Leigh Jorey was pretty successful in his mid-30s. A panel beater by trade, he'd completed an apprenticeship, owned his own tow truck company, and worked at it hard. His success didn't stop him becoming homeless. In fact, it may have contributed to the problem.

Under pressure, Jorey began to turn to less healthy ways of coping, which led him into a downward spiral.

"Ultimately, that led to me being unable to manage tenancies, manage commitments, manage responsibilities - so it was easier to not have them," Jorey tells Guardian Australia. "It was easier to live in squalid conditions, factories, people's lounges, parks. I'd fall asleep at train stations. It was just easier not to have a commitment to anything."

Jorey would remain homeless for nearly 20 years. His story overlaps with thousands of others who have experienced homelessness, and a new report from the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness and the Centre for Social Impact at the University of Western Australia (UWA) has brought them together.

Released on Monday, the report, titled Ending Homelessness in Australia: An Evidence and Policy Deep Dive, draws on surveys collected from 20,953 people who have come into contact with homelessness services across Australia over the past 10 years.

Prof Paul Flatau, director of the Centre for Social Impact at UWA and lead author of the report, says the dataset is the largest of its kind and the report marks the first time it has been analysed.

"We have done lots of studies in the past but it's usually on a relatively small number of people in the inner cities - a single place for one intervention - or it's using census data, or data from one organisation," Flatau says. "This is quite unique because it's very big - a really large, deep and rich database that we can use to understand the circumstances and journeys of people in very precarious situations."