The policy research aim of this research is to understand the place, house and home needs of Indigenous peoples and how to address these needs through housing and other service responses that secure sustainable solutions and support stable life conditions. More specifically, policy makers see a need to differentiate between Indigenous and non-Indigenous homelessness and to know whether or not Indigenous homelessness should be further differentiated according to contrasting geographic settings. This project consists of a comparison of Indigenous homelessness in selected sites in Western Australia (Perth, Carnarvon and Broome) and the New South Wales Sydney suburbs of Redfern and Mt Druitt. In the study, homelessness is approached as a socio-cultural phenomenon, with the data gathered via ethnographic interview. It is intended the research will inform policy development by enabling government and Indigenous housing providers to address the following objectives from the National Policy Vision for Indigenous Housing, ‘Building a better future: Indigenous housing to 2010’: identify and address unmet housing needs of Indigenous people through the identification of paths to and from homelessness; and improve the capacity of Indigenous community housing organisations in planning and service delivery of housing needs through the acquisition of an analytical understanding of Indigenous homelessness that takes into account the multiple factors of regional, cultural and environmental variation in the situation of Indigenous homeless people.