In recent weeks, three members of our community have died on the street, or in a tent in a park in greater Brisbane.

Two passed away near homeless services.

Some of the commentary has been to blame funded services, but these people are victims of the homelessness crisis, and a system not built to prevent premature deaths for the most vulnerable.

Each death is shocking. All deaths of people on the street are tragedies, but it is not a time to turn on people in services and blame them for inaction.

It is a time to talk about how our society can address these issues together, and for government to find the same urgency for homelessness that it has for other social problems.

The first time I was a confronted with a person who had died on the street was as a youth worker in Rockhampton, 40 years ago. The memory of that person has stayed with me vividly, as have the many I have witnessed since – in parks, or squats or alone recently housed.

Premature death is a reality for people who have experienced years of chronic homelessness, or become homeless with poor health, or for women forced to choose between homelessness and going back to violence.

Homelessness is not caused by an ALP or LNP housing crisis – it is a global issue.

The crisis is the result of years of underinvestment in public housing and the housing market shifts that prioritise asset price increase.

For many, it is as simple as their incomes not enabling them to pay the rents that continue to soar.

Australian studies have found people who are homeless died an average of 22 to 33 years younger than those who are housed. We see the vulnerability of people in streets, tents and in their cars every day and night.

Micah Projects staff, including nurses, support people with terminal cancer, serious wounds, recent surgeries, and more than 50 elderly people who are sleeping rough.

It’s not right that people receive chemo from the hospital and are discharged to sleep in a park – but it is the reality. Every week we receive referrals from people leaving EDs and hospital beds to our services, and because of tight budgets, for some that means sleeping rough.

The community is trying to respond and care for the most vulnerable. Sixteen homelessness agencies work together in the Brisbane Zero collaboration to work together on solutions to homelessness.

According to that data, 87 per cent of individuals experiencing homelessness have a serious health condition, and 28 per cent have been admitted to hospital five or more times in the past year.

Homelessness services cannot turn these realities around ourselves. Neither can blaming people who are facing homelessness.

Every death on the street is a moral failure of our society to protect our most vulnerable citizens, and we have to act together to address it.

The community is rightly frustrated to see more and more people living in public space. It is not how we imagine our city to be – with the kind of visible street homelessness we associate with Los Angeles.

But funded community organisations do not have the resources to house everyone, or even put all rough sleepers up in a motel for the night.

Micah Projects staff work with each person, learn their name and experiences, to match their need with affordable and appropriate housing services.

The services they need include healthcare. We have an economically evaluated integrated Street to Home nursing service – without secure funding. And what we have does not go far enough. Our health and support staff work hard, but they cannot address the scale of need.

There are many volunteer organisations that work hard on this, too, and we work with them. Access to government services comes with increasingly burdensome bureaucracy, instead of a house. Homelessness reflects back to us a shattered mirror of the fragmentation and cracks in housing, healthcare and family support.

We know that if we can work together, respecting each other’s complementary roles, we can respond to the complexity of the task of solving homelessness.

If we co-ordinate our efforts, share information about who we are supporting, and who is still waiting, we can target scarce resources better. Community organisations can provide better support and advocacy for the people they work with, council can better manage public space, state government and volunteer organisations can reach a hand out to vulnerable people and form a meaningful connection and help.

But at the end of the day, the community needs more funding to provide integrated health services so we can reach people on the street and help prevent premature deaths.

Karyn Walsh is chief executive of not-for-profit homelessness service provider Micah Projects.

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