Loading A new report by the Productivity Commission has underlined how badly Victoria is failing many of its most vulnerable citizens. Almost 40 per cent of those who went to homelessness services for help were turned away last year. Ms Watts and Tom initially applied for leases in Melbourne’s north-west, but were rejected every time. Tom had lost his job as a bus driver and the pair were both on Centrelink payments. “We were knocked back for everything we applied for and there was nothing that we could really afford,” Ms Watts says.

Eventually the couple fronted at Vincent Care, a registered transitional housing provider based in Glenroy, who booked them one night’s accommodation at the Coburg Motor Inn, a regular temporary refuge for the homeless. “The room was in appalling condition – no bedding, no pillows, nothing,” Ms Watts says. The first night the police visited the premises several times over violence and damage to property. The couple returned to Vincent Care the next day and begged to be housed elsewhere but were told nothing was available. Aged in their 50s and homeless for the first time, for 18 months they couch-surfed with relatives, lived in unsafe rooming houses and in some of the city's worst motels, huddled in a garage and even squatted briefly in their old home.

Loading They dealt with multiple crisis housing agencies. “I had never been in this position before in my life,” Ms Watts says. “I could never understand how bad it was until I was in it.” Ms Watts says she didn't even consider applying for public housing, as she knew people who had spent more than a decade waiting.

The waiting list for public housing grew from 34,618 applications to 38,775 in the four years to September. Meanwhile, as the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services revealed this week, the number of long-term social housing dwellings in the state actually fell, from 80,705 to 80,501. The stagnation in the supply of social housing in Victoria has driven an increase in the number of people presenting to homeless services for help, and in the proportion being turned away. Eventually Ms Watts secured a bedsit for over-55s in Coburg through Tenants Victoria’s rooming house outreach service. She says the experience took a profound mental and physical toll.

“I also felt hopeless,” she says from her bedsit, which she calls her “mini-palace”. “This is my own place," she says. "No one has a key to my room any more." Victoria’s Council to Homeless Persons said the figures in the government services report exposed a “housing emergency” that should spur the Andrews government to fund a huge boost to social housing in its next budget. Acting Minister for Housing Lily D’Ambrosio said the state government had made significant investments in updating housing stock and was working closely with community housing, local government and the private sector to develop long-term solutions to the social housing shortage. “We know there is more to do though, which is why we’re investing an additional $209 million to construct an additional 1000 public housing properties over the next three years, building on the 1800 new social housing properties we’ve already delivered,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.