In NSW, there are around 156,000 social housing dwellings. Social housing includes public housing, community housing and Aboriginal housing.
In February 2024, Homes NSW was established as a division of the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) with responsibility for managing housing and homelessness services.
The Audit Office of NSW assessed whether social housing is effectively and efficiently prioritised to meet the needs of vulnerable households, and whether social housing tenants are effectively supported to establish and sustain their tenancies.
Conclusion
The audit concluded that :
- the process to apply for a social housing property is inefficient and inequitable. The application process requests substantial amounts of evidence to determine whether an applicant is a priority. Some applicants are supported by external agencies to collect this evidence while others cannot access support.
- The process to allocate available social housing properties is inefficient and inequitable. In June 2024, DCJ took an average of 33 days to fill a vacant property. Just under a third of offers of housing result from manually selecting an applicant, rather than using the priority ranked list of applicants. DCJ does not centrally monitor manual allocation decisions, which risks inequitable outcomes.
- Social housing tenants do not consistently receive effective support to help them establish a successful tenancy or sustain that tenancy when issues arise. DCJ does not have a clearly articulated strategy for supporting tenancies, nor does it monitor or report on the support it coordinates for tenants.
Recommendations
The report made five recommendations:
- Simplify the social housing application process.
- Review and improve the allocation and offer process.
- Regularly monitor and report on the use of manual allocations.
- Clearly articulate the role of Homes NSW as a social housing landlord.
- Align key data sets between DCJ and community housing providers.
Read the report in full here: Social housing | Audit Office of New South Wales
Download the Report Summary here
The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) launched the report ‘State of the Housing System 2025’ in April. The report presents a sobering view of Australia’s housing system, with deteriorating housing affordability and low levels of housing supply. Across the country, the housing crisis is having detrimental effects on families and individuals, especially those living on low incomes who are making sacrifices and impossible choices to pay for housing.
Read the report here
In NSW, 2,192 people were counted sleeping rough in the 2025 annual statewide rough sleeping count. This represents an increase of 8% compared to 2024. Street counts took place in more than 415 towns and suburbs in 77 LGA’s across NSW.
Street Counts provide a point-in-time measure of the number of people sleeping rough in a particular area and provides the NSW Government with an indication of programs and housing needed in those areas.
The results of the Street Count in February 2025 show mixed results. Byron Shire reported a 16% drop in the number of people sleeping rough, after a spike in numbers last year. The City of Sydney Street Count recorded the highest number of people sleeping rough, with a 24% increase from 2024. The number of people sleeping rough in inner Sydney was 346, compared to 280 people counted 12 months ago, and the number of people sleeping in crisis and temporary accommodation was 380, a slight drop from 392 in 2024.
These results underscore the urgent need for more social housing and more support across NSW.
Read more about Street Counts here
Access the NSW Statewide Street Count here
Read the media release from the Minister for Housing and Homelessness NSW Government here.
Anglicare released their Rental Affordability Snapshot today, finding that housing affordability has continued to plummet to record lows.
Of the 51,238 rental listings surveyed:
- 352 rentals (0.7%) were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage
- 165 rentals (0.3%) were affordable for a person on the Age Pension
- 28 rentals (0.1%) were affordable for a person on the Disability Support Pension
- 3 rentals (0%), all rooms in sharehouses, were affordable for a person on JobSeeker
- No rentals were affordable for a person on Youth Allowance.
The Mercy Foundation endorses Anglicare Australia’s call for Government to directly fund and provide housing itself, rather than leaving it to the private sector.
The chronic lack of affordable housing is creating bottlenecks in services and denying a safe and affordable home for families and individuals.
Housing is a human right. We know that living without a safe, stable and affordable home has severely detrimental effects that are long lasting. The current state of housing and homelessness in Australia is impacting heavily on marginalised groups, including older women, women and children escaping domestic violence and young people.
Download the report here.
Learn more about the Right to Housing.
Pope Francis was a man of peace, compassion, mercy, faith and love. A man for others. He reminded us of our common humanity, our responsibility to care for each other and for our planet. We give gratitude for his life, he will be greatly missed.
Pope Francis often spoke about mercy. In fact, he declared 2016 to be the Jubilee of Divine Mercy. On Sunday, 3 April 2016, Pope Francis delivered a homily at Saint Peter’s Square, speaking about mercy. The last paragraph of the homily concludes with these words:
Truly, God’s mercy is forever; it never ends, it never runs out, it never gives up when faced with closed doors, and it never tires. In this forever we find strength in moments of trial and weakness because we are sure that God does not abandon us. He remains with us forever. Let us give thanks for so great a love, which we find impossible to grasp; it is immense! Let us pray for the grace to never grow tired of drawing from the well of the Father’s mercy and bringing it to the world. Let us ask that we too may be merciful, to spread the power of the Gospel everywhere, and to write those pages of the Gospel which John the Apostle did not write.
Read the full homily here.
The recent announcements from the two major parties have focused on access to housing for younger people. It is disappointing that women over 55 years, who are the fastest growing group to experience homelessness, have been left behind.
More than 75% of single older women living in private rental are living in poverty. Each day, women are making tough choices between food, medication, transport and paying rent. Decades of poor policy, persistent structural barriers and pervasive ageism has significantly increased their risk of homelessness.
What is desperately needed is more investment in social housing that supports the needs of all people, including older women, and urgent attention to address immediate needs.
Yumi Lee, CEO of the Older Women’s Network of NSW, recently spoke about the need on ABC radio.
Listen here.
Professor Jessie Hohmann recently released a report, The Right to Housing in Australia, commissioned by the Human Rights Law Centre that discusses the need for a right to housing as a human right in Australian law.
The report explains the right to housing, Australia’s existing human rights framework, provides a case study to illustrate what housing looks like without a human right to housing, why we need a right to housing at all levels of government and how to make the right to housing a reality in Australia.
In the executive summary, Jessie writes:
Adequate housing shields us from the elements and from external threats and pressures. It gives us a base from which we can take part in the life of the community, and from where we can build a livelihood, take part in education, and contribute to society. Housing also provides a space where the private aspects of our lives are fostered and supported. The way people are housed reflects a social and political agreement about what standards of living, levels of inequality and social exclusion we tolerate or condone. Thus, housing provides not just material shelter, but helps set physical boundaries of belonging and community.
Th report can be accessed here: The Right to Housing in Australia 2025
The Grattan Institute released a report finding that two in three retirees who live in the private rental market live in poverty. With the decline in home ownership in Australia, this figure is expected to increase. The figures are worse for women, where 78% of single, retired women renting in the private market are living in poverty. This places them at great risk of homelessness, and the anxiety of living with the burden of poverty.
Many older working Australians in the rental market have insufficient funds to continue paying rent when they stop working. Without enough social housing to meet the current demand, many retirees will be left with nowhere to go.
The report recommends that
- The maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance should be increased by 50% for singles and sharers, and 40% for couples.
- Commonwealth Rent Assistance should be indexed to changes in rents for the cheapest 25% of rental homes in capital cities.
Access the report here: Renting in Retirement: Why rent assistance needs to rise
Congratulations to Maeve Brown, the recipient of the Cath Leary Social Justice Award for 2024. The award recognises Maeve’s outstanding efforts, leadership and lifelong commitment to upholding human rights and human dignity in her work with people seeking asylum and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds.
Read more
A 10 year study from AIHW data has revealed that the mortality rate for people seeking support from homelessness services in the last 12 months before their death was 1.8 times that of the general population.
Over the 10 year period, 12,525 people died within a year of seeking assistance from a homelessness service and the median age of death was just 49 years.
More than 10% of all deaths were women aged between 25 – 34 years.
Around 1,500 people are dying each year of preventable deaths, and that’s an increase of 60%.
Accidental poisoning and suicide were the most common underlying causes of death among SHS clients, accounting for around one-quarter to one-third of all deaths each year within the study period.
These statistics are shocking and unacceptable. We know that homelessness is detrimental to both physical and mental health and this is confirmed by the recent AIHW study.
Good quality, affordable and safe housing is fundamental for health and wellbeing. Homelessness is a national health emergency and should be treated as such.
Read the report from AIHW here.
