Despite steady economic growth in Australia, homelessness increased by 14% between the 2011 and 2016 censuses, with 116,427 people now thought to have no permanent home.

This means that for every 10,000 Australians, 50 are homeless. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which released the data on Wednesday, estimates that more than 43,500 homeless people are under 25.

The Mission Australia chief executive, James Toomey, said the figures were an “international embarrassment” caused by a lack of serious political commitment nationally to building more social housing and affordable homes.

“We cannot afford to ignore this situation any longer,” he said. “Safe and secure housing provides the platform for children to attend school, adults to work, people to be healthy and communities to thrive.”

Migrants were disproportionately affected. While 28.2% of Australians were born overseas, they comprise 46% of the homeless. The elderly too are vulnerable. People aged between 65 and 74 experiencing homelessness increased to 27 people per 10,000 people in 2016, up from 25 per 10,000 people in 2011.



Guy Johnson, a professor of urban housing and homelessness at RMIT University, said rising housing costs combined with a decline in public and community housing were exacerbating homelessness among the chronically disadvantaged.

“In a country as prosperous as Australia, this is a disturbing and worrying trend,” Johnson said.

“Public housing is particularly effective because it’s affordable and has traditionally offered long-term security for precariously housed people.”

The ABS defines someone as homeless if their current living arrangement is in a dwelling that is inadequate, has no tenure, and does not allow control of and access to space for social relations.

Paul Jelfs, the general manager of population and social statistics at the ABS, said people living in “severely” crowded dwellings – defined as requiring four or more extra bedrooms to accommodate the people who usually live there – was the greatest contributor to the national increase in homelessness.

“In 2016, this group accounted for 51,088 people, up from 41,370 in 2011,” he said.

While 2.8% of Australians are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, the latest data shows they comprise 20% of the homeless, although this number is continuing to decline.



Overcrowding had driven a 37% increase in the number of homeless people in NSW, according to the chief executive of Homelessness NSW, Katherine McKernan.

“We still have around 60,000 people on the public housing waiting list and less than 1% of private rental properties in greater Sydney and surrounds are affordable for people on low incomes,” she said.

But the NSW social housing minister, Pru Goward, said homelessness was a priority for the NSW government. In the past year, the state government introduced more proactive outreach programs, resulting in 200 people from the inner city being placed in permanent and stable social housing, she said.

In Victoria there had been an 11% increase in homelessness between the two census surveys. Jenny Smith, the chief executive of the Council to Homeless Persons in Victoria, said the crisis was no surprise.

“As a country we’ve failed to tackle the housing affordability crisis, and our homelessness services continue to be chronically underfunded,” Smith said.

“Homelessness is not a lifestyle choice, it reflects systems failure, and most critically, a shortage of affordable housing. In our state budget we’ve called for 14,500 more social housing properties, tripling the commitment already made by the Victorian government. However, without federal government investment in social housing and homelessness support, we’re just bucketing water on the Titanic.”

The Council to Homeless Persons calls for reform of the housing taxation system, an increase to Centrelink incomes, especially the Newstart income, and increased funding of homelessness services.

John Falzon, the chief executive of St Vincent de Paul, said “charities can only do so much”. “It is now time for the federal government to show real leadership and make some brave decisions to end homelessness in our rich country,” he said.