The biannual survey of the city’s homeless was expanded this year to take in five council areas in total

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Almost 400 people were sleeping rough on Melbourne’s streets last month, according to a survey conducted in inner city council areas.

The survey was conducted by 400 volunteers on 19 June. They recorded 392 people sleeping across five local government areas, with the majority – 279 people – within the City of Melbourne.

The City of Melbourne has been conducting biannual street counts since 2013 but expanded to include the surrounding councils of Port Phillip, Yarra, Stonnington and Maribyrnong this year.

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The numbers for the city of Melbourne were 15% below the 247 recorded in 2016, which was in turn double the number recorded in 2014.

Victoria’s peak homelessness body said the results were only a snapshot and the reduction could have been due to weather on the night.

The Council to Homeless Persons chief executive, Jenny Smith, said the figures represented only a fraction of those experiencing homelessness in Victoria.

“Rough sleeping is the most visible symptom of a broken housing system,” she said. “It is the tip of the homelessness iceberg but beyond the rough sleeping figures are thousands of people sleeping in their cars, living in motel rooms and cycling through rooming houses.”

About 105,000 people contacted a homelessness service in Victoria in 2017. Smith said one-third were turned away due to lack of resourcing. She has called on the state government and opposition to commit to putting more resourcing into public and emergency housing.

According to figures released by the City of Melbourne, 42% of those included in the count are on the waiting list for public housing.

Fourteen per cent had been homeless or transient for more than five years.

Men and boys made up 78% of those surveyed, and 79% had been born in Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples made up 14% of those sleeping rough.

The City of Melbourne’s acting lord mayor, Arron Wood, said expanding the count to surrounding municipalities provided a more accurate picture of homelessness in Melbourne. After Melbourne, the council with the highest number of people sleeping rough was Port Phillip, which includes South Melbourne and St Kilda.

“Ultimately, the solution is to get people into housing but pathways out of homelessness require a case-by-case solution,” Wood said.

In January 2017, the disgraced former lord mayor, Robert Doyle, suggested Melbourne could ban rough sleepers following weeks of negative media coverage of a “camp” at Flinders Street station.

That suggestion was swiftly withdrawn and replaced by a $9.8m emergency grant from the state government to move people camping in high-visibility areas to transitional housing.

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The Andrews government has committed $1bn towards easing homelessness since 2014, including $45m toward connecting rough sleepers to outreach workers and sustainable accommodation. However it has been criticised for selling off inner-city public housing blocks in favour of new developments.

Housing minister Martin Foley said the reduction in the number of people recorded in the City of Melbourne was “an encouraging sign” that investments in reducing homelessness were working.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy said the focus should be on the root causes of homelessness, such as domestic violence and mental health, as well as moving people into emergency housing.

The Liberal party has announced a policy to release 290,000 affordable housing blocks in the outer suburbs by 2020, compared to the 100,000 to be released by Labor by the end of 2018, and is also campaigning to close an emergency housing facility in Brighton East.

James Newbury (@newbury3186) CLOSING 226 SOUTH ROAD.



Out knocking on doors in Brighton East and Hampton, letting hundreds of residents know that an elected Liberal Government will close the temporary housing facility for rough sleepers at 226 South Road, and then sell the site. #SpringSt pic.twitter.com/Gd6IrNLT3e

A Guardian Australia analysis of 2016 census data found that Melbourne’s western suburbs, previously considered a bastion of affordability, had among the highest increases of homelessness in the country.