Huge spike in requests for homelessness services in just four months

Demand for homelessness ­services is spiking at ‘unheard of’ levels, with older women most ­affected, new data shows.

Homelessness is on the rise. Picture: iStock

Demand for homelessness ­services is spiking at “unheard of” levels, with older women most ­affected, new data shows.

Between December and March the number of people seeking homelessness assistance jumped 7.5 per cent, climbing to almost 96,000 in March, a Homelessness Australia report says. Queensland saw the biggest increase, up by 13 per cent in those four months, followed by Western Australia (11 per cent) and NSW (10 per cent).

On present trends almost 20,000 more Australians will be looking for assistance this year, and if added to the 70,000 turned away from homelessness services each year, would leave an annual shortfall in support funding of about $450m, the report says.

Record low rental vacancies, high housing prices and disturbing levels of family violence were behind the “worst housing crisis in living memory”, Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin said.

“A 7.5 per cent increase in ­demand in just four months is unheard of. It forces homelessness services to make extremely tough decisions about who gets assistance,” Homelessness Australia CEO Kate Colvin said.

“Support services are triaging based on people’s vulnerability and need, but the reality is highly vulnerable people are being turned away because services simply have too few staff and other support resources.”

Women and children make up three in four Australians seeking homelessness support and 80 per cent of those turned away due to a lack of capacity, the report finds.

“The bulk of increased ­demand comes from women and children, many of whom are fleeing violence. It is beyond comprehension that we have to turn people away, especially in winter,” Ms Colvin said.

Women aged over 65 ­accounted for the steepest percentage increase in demand in the last four months, though women between the ages of 25 and 44 were the largest cohort of those using such services.

The data comes amid a debate in Canberra over new social housing policy and the passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill, which includes a funding commitment for 30,000 new social and affordable houses in the first five years. A Senate inquiry into the rental crisis is also under way, with an interim report due next month.

Ms Colvin said the proposed housing legislation was “only a small part of the overall solution to homelessness”. She said the government must bring “both a long- and short-term lens to the issue, with more social and ­affordable housing at scale, ­higher income support and stronger measures to reduce family violence.”

Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin.

“We also need the government to be responding to the current homelessness emergency,” she said. “We need the government to be investing in homelessness services and housing so that people can get the help they need when they lose their home.”

A coalition of 80 organisations us to make a submission to the Senate inquiry for fair limits on rent increases, ending no-cause evictions, and improving energy efficiency in homes. The group is also calling on federal, state and territory governments to aim for at least 10 per cent of all dwellings to be social housing.

“The horrors of the rental crisis are here to stay if governments don’t act,” Everybody’s Home spokeswoman Maiy Azize said.

“Piecemeal measures aren’t going to cut it.”