Climbing homelessness rates have prompted calls for more action to solve Australia's housing crisis.
New Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show nearly 123,000 people experienced homelessness on Census night 2021.
This number had swollen by around 6000 since the 2016 count, representing a 5.2 per cent lift.
While men make up the bulk of those experiencing homelessness, the number of females experiencing homelessness lifted 10.1 per cent over the five years compared to the 1.6 increase in male homelessness.
Nearly one quarter of those experiencing homelessness were aged between 12 and 24.
Measures introduced during the pandemic to stop the spread of COVID - including housing rough sleepers in hotels - drove an uptick in those sleeping in temporary accommodation and a decline in those sleeping rough.
Greens homelessness spokesman Max Chandler-Mather said the homelessness figures should serve as a wake-up call for the federal government.
"Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and it should be a national shame on this government that they're overseeing the explosion of one of the worst housing crises in our national history," he told reporters on Wednesday.
He said the federal government was treating the housing crisis as an afterthought and spending nowhere near enough on social and affordable housing.
Labor is in negotiations with the Greens and crossbenchers to pass its signature housing fund that will see 30,000 new social housing dwellings built in the first five years of the scheme, with up to $500 million spent each year.
The Greens want $5 billion a year in public, community and affordable housing, which they say would build 225,000 homes, along with a national freeze on rent increases,.
Housing affordability and homelessness organisations also voiced their concerns about stubbornly high homelessness rates.
Community Housing Industry Association chief executive officer Wendy Hayhurst said it had been almost two years since the census, and the red-hot rental market would likely have exacerbated the problem.
She also urged the federal government to build on its existing commitments to ease housing shortages.
"The Housing Australia Future Fund is a great start that could be made even better by a regular top-up so that it generates a reliable, predictable source of funding for an ongoing social and affordable housing program," she said.
National Shelter chief executive officer Emma Greenhalgh also welcomed the government's efforts to act on the housing crisis through the fund and a national homelessness plan but urged the government to support vulnerable households in the meantime.
Also on Wednesday, the federal government pledged to keep an existing homelessness support program going with a $90 million funding commitment.
A total of $91.7 million over three years will go to the community-based Reconnect program targeted towards young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
