As Australia’s Catholic bishops illuminated the nation’s struggle with homelessness and poor mental health in their social justice statement, local charities are struggling to support the new, younger face of homelessness.
The intersection of growing homelessness and mental health is the focus of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference 2025-2026 social justice statement, Signs of Hope on the Edge: Serving People Living in Homelessness and Mental Ill-Health.
In 2022-23, 273,600 people were assisted by homelessness services across the country, with 25 per cent of them single parents.
St Vincent de Paul Society NSW and St Canice’s Kitchen in inner city Sydney are two charities witnessing the changing demographics on the front lines.
St Vincent de Paul Society NSW Director of Homelessness and Housing Anna Scott said the majority of people who came to them for help were living in unsuitable or unstable accommodation.
She said the charity supported approximately 6,600 people in the last financial year, with thousands more requesting support Vinnies did not have the resources to provide.
Scott paints a stark picture of homelessness in the state as she said the leading reason people seek their help is domestic and family violence, with another prominent cause being insecure housing.
“Things like inadequate or inappropriate accommodation, housing affordability stress, so rent rises, people are unable to maintain rent payments, or face eviction for a number of reasons,” she told The Catholic Weekly.
“It’s taking us about 190 days on average to achieve an outcome for anybody that we’re working with, and that’s risen dramatically over the last three years.”
She said the charity helped people to find suitable housing, whether that be social housing, securing lower rents, or finding a new home which is affordable.
She said Vinnies also helped people leave unsuitable situations without incurring penalties for breaking lease agreements, which mainly occurs in situations of violence.
Scott said in addition to more people requiring support, the demographics of the people seeking help are changing.
“We’re certainly seeing a lot of people who are employed but still unable to find or maintain a tenancy because of costs or because of availability of housing,” she said.
“We’re seeing a lot of people on precarious visas, so people with visas that mean they might be leaving a violent relationship, but their visa means that they are not entitled to any Centrelink benefit or entitled to social housing.”
Scott said there was also an increase in people with complex mental health needs which also needed to be met.
“People are experiencing homelessness for longer periods of time, which understandably impacts their mental health in a really negative way,” she said.
“By the time that they’re coming to us, our goal is to work with them on housing, but our first priority is to stabilise their mental health and their wellbeing and that can take a really long time.”
She said a person would be likely to be feeling housing stress if more than 30 per cent of their income on housing.
“But the reality is that many, many people are paying more than that,” she said.
“The further you go from that 30 per cent, the more vulnerable you are going to be.”
St Canice’s Kitchen Manager Oliver Mulhearn said the amount of people using the services has been steadily rising over the past few years.
The kitchen, which is connected to Elizabeth Bay parish St Canice’s, serves as an outreach for homeless and marginalised people in inner city Sydney.
He said that for the first time in nearly 40 years since the kitchen had opened, more women are seeking meals, access to social workers and a health clinic and other supports it offers.
He also said there is a rising cohort of young international students and other young people seeking help after finding they simply cannot afford the cost of living and studying in the city.
Mulhearn said there were students pretending everything is fine when speaking to their parents but were really sleeping rough.
“The guests coming in aren’t so much those who have been pulled into that life of addiction and mental health (issues); the main determinant for their kind of situation is financial, not so much addiction or mental health issues, which is what the larger demographic of our older population here has been over the years,” he said.