A national analysis highlighting homelessness as a critical social problem that has recently escalated. It draws links to labour market and housing market trends, and to social security and affordable housing policy developments. The research investigated the changing scale and nature of the problem and assessed associated policy and practice developments and debates.

The Australian Homelessness Monitor covers homelessness in all its forms, but this time with a specific focus on the actual and potential homelessness role of local government authorities.

Key findings

• For lower income Australians in need of accommodation, private housing market conditions have become increasingly stressful since 2020. 
• Unusually low tenancy turnover within the rental market has co-existed with a downturn in newly-built homes being made available for let. 
• A long-overdue influx of newly-built social housing has begun to filter through in some states, however, since it will be some time before this flows through in most areas, the bulk of the country currently remains in the grip of a tightening squeeze on public and community housing supply.
• For homelessness services agencies, these trends have created something of a perfect storm, as rising underlying need for assistance has paralleled declining scope to provide such help. These problems would have been yet more acute in the absence of the significant boosts to Rent Assistance sanctioned by the Commonwealth Government in 2023 and 2024.
• The housing market drivers that underlie rising homelessness are structural, not (only) cyclical. Therefore, fundamental policy reforms are required. Relevant policy settings must be acknowledged, analysed and reconsidered in any National Housing and Homelessness Plan.