Four in 10 people who sought help from a major homelessness charity in the past three years were employed but could not meet skyrocketing rents, according to a report by Mission Australia.
The report comes as the demand for the organisation’s homelessness services, mainly based in New South Wales, jumped by 26% to 7,378 people between January 2020 to December last year.
The number of people seeking help who were already homeless increased by 50% in three years to more than 3,500 people – mainly due to inadequate supply or affordable housing, the report said.
Of those people experiencing homelessness, only a third were supported into secure long-term housing. Half were supported into short-term or emergency housing due to the lack of long-term housing.
The report found the number of people living in tents, cars, improvised homes and sleeping rough who had sought help from its services more than doubled in three years to 640.
Seventy per cent of those who sought its help were on income support payments. The report said skyrocketing rents, low wages and income support payments, and a stark shortage of social and affordable housing, had compounded to turn homelessness in Australia into a “national emergency”.
“We’re now seeing families with children, including those escaping domestic violence, more older people – specifically older women – and many people who are working full-time,” Mission Australia’s program manager, Donna Davis, said. “There really is a whole new cohort of people that need our help.”
The findings follow Australian Bureau of Statistics data that found the number of people experiencing homelessness in Australia has increased by 5.2%. Last year’s annual homelessness report by the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare found that on average 300 people are turned away from homelessness services every day, primarily due to a lack of available accommodation.
“It’s the worst it has ever been, and in a country like this where it should be avoidable,” said Mission Australia’s chief executive, Sharon Callister.
“Australia needs to be doing so much more to be on the front foot to prevent and end homelessness in our country, instead of Band-Aid crisis solutions.”
The report found there was success for many who sought the charity’s services before they became homeless, with 94% receiving the support they needed to remain living in their homes.
Callister said this success proved the need for more investment in the prevention of homelessness and to invest in building one million social and affordable homes over the next 20 years. The report also called for more financial assistance for private renters, and lifting income support payments above the poverty line.
The chief executive urged the government to pass the housing Australia future fund bill, which the Coalition opposes and the Greens have refused to support unless the government offers improvements, including up to $5bn of direct spending on housing and a national rent freeze.
“Thirty-thousand new social and affordable housing is not nearly enough and the legislation is imperfect,” Callister said. “But it’s a start, and that’s what we need.”
