An estimated 22,000 people are without shelter across the state, half under 25 and 3,000 of them children. So why does the issue seem to be entirely absent from the campaign?

Homeless people are often barely visible in public life, and in the Victorian election campaign the parties have produced invisible policies to match.

Homelessness has perhaps pipped the environment as the topic the major parties least want to talk about.

Warnings from advocates that the situation is deteriorating at an alarming rate have been met with a collective political silence towards those without a place to call home – an unimaginable predicament to many.

There are an estimated 22,000 homeless people in Victoria, half under 25 and 3,000 of them children. The traditional homeless avatar of the grizzled older man on a park bench is increasingly misleading – soaring rents, domestic violence and mental health issues mean a growing number of young people and women have no home.

The Council to Homeless Persons (CHP) says whoever wins Saturday’s election must commit about $200m a year for the next four years to bridge a shortfall in public and community housing. About 35,000 people are on the waiting list for social housing, some having waited more than a decade for a place.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Staff at the Salvos on Melbourne’s Bourke Street provide three free meals a day, as well as a range of support services, for the homeless. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

“Unless we can increase housing and practical assistance, we are not going to tackle that 22,000 figure,” says Jenny Smith, chief executive of the CHP.

“The system is groaning under the weight of increasing demand. The biggest group is women and children escaping family violence and young people dealing with addiction. But we’re also seeing more older people now, too.

“We’ve been hopeful the major parties would put forward coherent homelessness policies. But we’re still waiting.”

Major Brendan Nottle has been fighting this battle in the shadows for 11 years. The Salvation Army leader, along with his wife and two daughters, plough an inordinate amount of time into maintaining a Salvos drop-in centre on Melbourne’s Bourke Street.

The centre, used mainly for religious purposes when it opened in 1890, is now set aside to provide three free meals a day, along with various support services. Nottle says demand is “through the roof”. About 160 homeless people were turning up for lunch each day at the start of last year – that number has nearly doubled.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Darryl Annett, a staff lawyer, one of the support workers at the Salvos’ drop-in centre. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

“I sense there is now a real element of desperation amongst people,” he says, cradling a coffee during a brief respite. “They are feeling rejected by the government and that reflects onto us when we deal with them.

“They aren’t across the deep detail of policy, but they hear that there will be a co-payment to see the doctor. They hear that young people will wait six months for benefits. They get the general gist that they are on the outer. That hardens them.

“There’s always been an ebb and flow. In winter we’d see numbers drop off and then increase in summer. But we aren’t seeing the ebb any more. We are seeing a lot more people on the streets, people in desperate circumstances.”

The drop-in centre has a certain unexpected grandeur to it. A sweeping staircase takes you to a landing with burgundy couches and potted ferns, more 1920s gentleman’s club than refuge for the desperate. The first floor also contains a stunning wood-panelled room where lively church services are held.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roberto, one of the visitors at the Salvos on Bourke Street sings and plays piano. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

Downstairs, in the heart of the centre, there’s a pleasant cafe that radiates human warmth, in every sense. Roberto, with an arch of darkness where teeth once sat, adds to the bonhomie by playing the piano that sits in the corner.

An adjoining mini supermarket, where visitors can take one item from the fridge and one from the freezer, is perennially understocked. Supermarkets have been approached to supply goods at a discount but have been unwilling to do so. In-house lawyer Darryl Annett is on hand to work through the myriad legal issues faced by the homeless.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Salvos’ perennially understocked mini-supermarket. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

Nottle says the atmosphere is usually friendly, although the growing problem of homeless people on ice presents occasional friction. But today is fairly serene, which is something Lisa Delanty is grateful for.

Delanty is spending her first lunchtime at the centre following a morning in court, where she is attempting to get an apprehended violence order against a former partner, who she says regularly tried to strangle her.

Perhaps the worst moment, Delanty says, was when her ex burst into her bedroom and started beating her, shortly after she had recovered from a brain aneurysm.

“I was in bed with my little boy, who was five years old at the time, and then [the former partner] burst into my room,” she says. “My arms were under the doona. He bashed me particularly where I’d had the aneurysms, saying ‘I hope you have another stroke, I hope you die this time.’”

Delanty used to have a stable life – a home and a job as a public servant. But a combination of violence and poor health meant she spent seven years homeless, spending time living in her car and then at the mercy of what she calls the “vulture’s claws” of people who run rooming houses of dubious legality.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lisa Delanty was homeless and living in a car before finding a spot in public housing. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

“Living in a car is very shameful, you put towels and blankets over the windows for privacy,” she says. “You are usually woken up by the sounds of people around you in the morning so you pack up your stuff and drive away. It’s soul destroying, absolutely.”

Delanty and her two young children now live in public housing in Prahran, although she says the other residents are resentful of her as she has a car and some other remnant possessions from her previous life. She says homelessness is particularly brutal for women.

“Women are often in a catch 22 – they have nowhere to stay so are pushed back to a violent partner because he can offer them housing,” she says. “If you’re male on the street, everyone looks after you. They give you everything. Even false teeth.

“But if you’re a woman, it’s ‘what did you do wrong? Why aren’t you looking after your children properly? Why are you with that man?’”

Nottle agrees that homeless women are in a particularly parlous position. He estimates that 70% of the people that come into the Salvos drop-in centre are men, due to the “terrible circumstances” of homeless women.

“Homeless young women feel that they are going to have to provide sexual favours if they are offered accommodation,” he says. “It’s almost a given in the minds of women we work with that they will be expected to provide sexual favours if they are offered a place to stay by someone in public housing. The circumstances are pretty awful and not spoken about that much.”

Labor, favourites to win Saturday’s election, has said Victorians will “hear more” from them about homelessness but as yet the party has announced no policies. The governing Coalition has slightly more to point to.

The housing minister, Wendy Lovell, says the government is spending $1.3bn to maintain public housing, preventing 9,500 homes being lost from the system.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brendon Foy. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

She claims Labor neglected the issue in office, but the Coalition has reduced the waiting list by more than 6,000 and added more than 4,000 new houses. But there is a frank acknowledgement that the scourge of homelessness is unlikely to be defeated, at least in the short term.

“Government housing is for those in the greatest need only, even though there’s a growing feeling among some people that it should be for everyone,” Lovell tells Guardian Australia, before downplaying the call for substantial investment in more houses.

“We need to shore up the numbers of public houses. If you have a building that has shaky foundations, you don’t add another storey to it.

“When you look at homelessness, there is no one simple cause and no one simple answer. There are a number of reasons. It’s a complex issue and solving it is also extremely complex.”

A new face of homelessness requires an altered response. Nottle says the Salvation Army and other charitable organisations are shifting from delivering meals and portable showers to those living under bridges or in parks, instead encouraging them to come to drop-in centres, to mingle with others and get the psychological and legal help they invariably need.

“That said, if you genuinely want to help a homeless person, you provide them with a house and all of the support they need,” Nottle says. “If the government is serious about helping them, they need to look at all the issues – mental health, addiction, trauma from sexual abuse.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trevor Wulf, who was homeless in 2010, and again more recently. Photograph: Meredith O'Shea/The Guardian

“I think the parties say the right things but you’d want to see more resources put in. We are seeing more people on the streets but the level of resource isn’t increasing.”

The stories of the homeless stay with Nottle. One in particular has lingered in the mind of the chaplain for a decade. Nottle discovered a nine-year-old boy sleeping rough, who had been beaten up by his father. They boy’s mother left him on the streets.

The boy ended up living with three other young children in an abandoned building in Melbourne’s CBD. One day, a member of the group, a 13-year-old girl, fell three storeys through a hole in the floor. She died in the arms of the other children.

“This boy went into a foster family but at 18 he left and became homeless again,” Nottle says. “He’s got serious addiction issues but I understand that because he’s dealing with a deep emotional pain that hasn’t been resolved. Once you unpick these people’s stories, you’ll realise there’s a lot of pain there. It’s a powerful reminder we need to do more.”

Nottle drains the last of his coffee, ready to get back into the fray of the drop-in centre’s lunchtime rush.

“As a society we have an obligation to get these people back on their feet,” he says. “You know, you’d think that surely as an advanced society, we should be doing more for those who are homeless. Surely.”