Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp. Credit:Simon Schluter "Cities are about people at the end of the day. We need to be there to reflect people's values and belief systems and our number one priority is homelessness. "It's particularly our rough sleepers, it's an expression of who we are as a culture. "It's absolutely vital to us as a city that we bring everybody along and we don't let people slip through the gaps. "And that's going to be our biggest test."

The lord mayors met with Mr Howarth on Tuesday following his comments on ABC Radio in which he said more than 116,000 homeless people made up just 0.5 per cent of Australia's population. Loading "I want to put a positive spin on it as well and not just say Australia's in a housing crisis when it affects a very, very small percentage of the population," he said. Between 2001 and 2016, homelessness in urban areas spiked from 48 per cent to 63 per cent. New South Wales saw a 37 per cent rise, while Queensland went up 14 per cent and Victoria 11 per cent.

Hobart lord mayor Anna Reynolds, whose city is struggling under the weight of a population boom that has driven up property prices, said lord mayors were ideally positioned to emphasise homelessness to state and federal counterparts. Hobart Mayor Anna Reynolds. Credit:AAP/Rob Blakers "Just in the last couple of days we've demonstrated that, that we've put on notice (to) the new federal Homelessness Minister that this is a really big issue," Cr Reynolds said. "We had a great conversation with him yesterday and I'm hoping that we can on these really core issues, like climate change, like homelessness, through our network and our voices ensure this three levels of action." Adelaide lord mayor Sandy Verschoor also pointed to homelessness as an issue affecting the South Australian capital.

She said the city's target was to have "zero functional homelessness" by 2020. "We're on a very tight timeframe," Cr Verschoor said. Loading "It's a public, private, university partnership. There's 30 organisations. We have got together to basically not only understand the reasons behind homelessness but also actually also map the systems in terms of service provision - where the gaps are, where there's overlap." Cr Verschoor said the project's key point of difference was that it collected data on each homeless person who was receiving support, so they were known by name and location.

"Hopefully by next year we'll be the only city outside the US that has achieved zero functional homelessness," she said. "It is one of the true issues that we are all trying to deal with as capital cities." Darwin lord mayor Kon Vatskalis said the Northern Territory's capital faced a different type of homelessness and a rate 12 times the national average. Alderman Vatskalis said 85 per cent of Darwin's homeless people were coming in from communities because the federal government had "failed to provide enough funding" to build accommodation. "The good thing with the minister yesterday, he listened to us," he said.