As cost of living pressures take their toll in the community, the St Vincent de Paul Society is struggling to keep up demands for accommodation help, says local CEO Lucy Hohnen. 

The Canberra/Goulburn chief is calling on the ACT government to double its funding allocation to frontline homelessness services in its upcoming budget.

“Whilst households wait for allocation into social housing and as the cost-of-living crisis continues, the demand for specialist homelessness services provided by community organisations such as the St Vincent de Paul Society continues to increase,” she said.  

“Like many organisations in the community sector, we are struggling to find the capacity and resources to match the increased demand we face, so this additional support is urgent until the housing stock and other support is made available in the future.”

Pointing to the Productivity Commission’s 2024 Report on Government Services (RoGS), she said homelessness is still a crucial issue in the ACT

In Canberra, 2407 people experienced homelessness for at least a month in the previous year, with 1082 people experiencing persistent homelessness.

The report highlights that 11.5 per cent of clients return to being homelessness after achieving housing, and critically one in four people (686 out of 2781 clients) did not have their accommodation needs met in the ACT in this period. 

The cost-of-living crisis continues to impact lower-income families. According to the RoGS, the proportion of lower-income families who are accessing community housing and are spending a substantial portion of their income on rent has increased.  

The proportion of households in community housing who spend more than 30 per cent of their income on rent has increased from 4.6 per cent in 2022 to 10.2 per cent in 2023. Additionally, those spending from a quarter to a third of their income on rent, have increased dramatically from 3.4 per cent in 2022 to 13.8 per cent in 2023.   

The report shows that the average rate of homelessness in Australia is nearly 50 people per 10,000. In the ACT it’s 39 people per 10,000, demonstrating no improvement from the 2016 rate of 40 per 10,000.  

“What these statistics show are the drivers behind the consistently high demand for support from community organisations like ours,” Ms Hohnen said. 

“We have seen an exponential increase in the calls for assistance through our emergency helpline in the past year. In December alone we saw a 40 per cent increase in the number of calls to us for help. The majority of these requests are for accommodation support to prevent individuals and families becoming homeless and for food.”

“We are also seeing an increase in people in need of specialist homelessness services and our front-line teams and drop-in centres are absolutely stretched,” she said.  

“We commend the ACT government for its efforts to address some of the issues regarding homelessness including the addition of more public and community housing units to the existing stock in the last year. However, the sheer number of people on the public housing waitlist – 3174 households – and the fact that those with the greatest need can experience a waiting period of up to 26 months demonstrates that much more needs to be improved to address this surge in demand for help.”

The RoGS report noted that, there is an emerging trend in the number of households living in overcrowded public and community housing units. In the ACT, 4.7 per cent households in public housing experience this, which is above the national average of 4.1 per cent, and worryingly 2.8 per cent in community housing experienced overcrowding, an increase from 0.3 per cent in 2022.