Homeless women in Melbourne are being regularly preyed upon by men who demand they have sex with them in return for accommodation, according to those who work in the homeless sector.

Women have told of being raped and abused by men who offer accommodation, with the expectation women will put up with these crimes because of the lack of affordable or safe shelter on offer.

The Victorian government has responded to these accounts, put forward by Guardian Australia, by indicating it will consider funding a new program targeting the issue – in particular men’s attitudes towards homeless women.

Brendan Nottle, of the Salvation Army, said there was a significant number of women who “assume they have to provide sexual favours” to men for accommodation, usually in rooming houses or public housing.

“Some women feel obligated to provide sex if they are seeking accommodation. It has become almost a given that they will have to offer that up to get somewhere to stay,” he told Guardian Australia. “Men prey upon these women, they target them for this purpose. They use accommodation to get women off the streets and as a way to ask for sexual favours.

“It’s very prevalent with the women we work with. Men view these women as sexual objects. It’s a big issue. The frustrating thing is I don’t think we’ve come up with an approach where men’s attitudes are changing.”

Nottle said the Salvation Army has been in contact with a woman who was asked by a man to move in with him when she became homeless. The woman said that she felt obligated to have sex with him when he approached her, naked, while she was having a shower.

Another woman reported having to sleep with a man each night or she would be evicted, while another homeless woman, who is 19 years old, told of a 40-year-old man who would provide money for her to feed her heroin habit, in return for sex.

“If there were more safe and secure accommodation for women, they wouldn’t need to resort to these sorts of things,” Nottle said. “The deeper issue is a cultural one, though. We need to change the thinking that this is normal.”

Four homeless women who spoke to Guardian Australia all said they felt they had nowhere to go once they lost shelter and that they did not feel alternatives, such as women’s refuges, were adequate. Guardian Australia has chosen not to identify the women.

One, a 17-year-old, left home at 15 when, she said, her mother’s partner abused and sexually harassed her. She subsequently experienced three abusive relationships, including alleged instances of rape, and is now pregnant.

“I had nowhere else to stay and it was better than sleeping on the street,” she said. “I was dating this guy, I was very trusting and he ended up raping me. I’ve been trying and trying to find a place to live, but it’s so hard.”

She said she found shelter in a shared house with a former partner, only for the housemates to demand that she have sex with several of them. She also alleges they assaulted her and filmed the incident on their phones.

“It’s all been very scary and stressful,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m breaking down. I haven’t had a proper smile on my face for ages, I put on a fake smile instead. I haven’t had much of a childhood. I don’t know what one is, really.”

One 40-year-old woman said she had been homeless for most of the past 25 years, since fleeing home as a child due to family violence. She said she sleeps under a bridge in Melbourne.

“It’s not good for women, they can get raped and murdered on the streets,” she said. “I’ve been in five abusive relationships, I’ve been bashed and raped, I’ve been flogged with broom handles, but I kept it to myself.

“Every Tom, Dick and Harry is trying to take my camp under the bridge. I have a partner who comes down to the camp and abuses me. It’s just how a lot of men see women. They should treat women properly, not like sluts because they are on the streets.”

It is estimated about 22,000 people are homeless on any given night in Victoria, a figure that has risen 20% since 2006. Nationally, there are about 105,000 homeless people, with women making up a third of people sleeping rough and a quarter of people in rooming houses.

Nottle said violence and sexual predation of women needed to be tackled by, among other things, a new outreach campaign to help change attitudes among men.

Martin Foley, Victoria’s housing minister, told Guardian Australia the government would be open to this idea.

“Of course we’d support that; men need to take responsibility for their own actions, whether that’s corporate leaders or men who are homeless,” he said.

“That’s a broader society change that needs to happen but if Brendan and the Salvos identify homelessness as an area where there’s predatory behaviour, of course we’d want to talk to them about ways of doing that.”

Foley said he was “moved and appalled” to hear what homeless women have endured but said he was not surprised as a previous Victorian government report on homelessness, launched in 2009, identified violence and sexual predation as a problem.

Foley said the government would tighten regulations on rooming houses and the people who operate them, but affordable housing was the key issue.

“Rooming houses is unfinished business. We need a minimum standards regime and a licensing system to get the cowboys out,” he said. “There is not enough suitable housing to allow [women] to escape their circumstances or enough properly regulated crisis housing.”

Jenny Smith, the chief executive of the Council to Homeless Persons, said she supported greater scrutiny of rooming house operators but that informal arrangements made by women for accommodation made them “very vulnerable”.

“Women are out there in a brutal marketplace, looking to protect their children,” she said. “They are extremely vulnerable to more unscrupulous members of our community. Some rooming houses are no places for women and children and we have great concern about them ending up there.”