Newly released figures have revealed that more Victorians are being turned away from homelessness services as social housing spending is cut by 9 per cent.
New data from the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services, ranks Victoria well below the national average of 4.04 per cent for the social housing proportion.
With the amount of public housing owned by government and non-profits, at only 2.95 per cent of Victoria’s households, it places Victoria last across the nation for the amount of social housing it provides to those in need.
Council to Homeless Persons (CHP), the peak body that works to represent and advocate for homelessness in Victoria, said that these numbers were concerning and worked to further broaden the gap to solving the homelessness crisis in Victoria.
With the main drivers of homelessness being cost of living, family violence incidents and a housing crisis.
In line with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s annual report, in the period of 2024-25, Victoria had the highest number of affordability-stressed clients, accounting for 34 per cent of affordability-stressed clients nationwide.
It was only late last year that CHP held an event in Casey’s Bunjil Place, raising awareness on the growing homelessness crisis, specifically among women, and calling for greater funding as well as security for social housing.
According to 2025 data from The Salvation Army, in Casey, 76.2 per cent of people identified housing affordability and homelessness as an issue in the community while, 34.3 per cent identified it as an issue for themselves.
CHP’s CEO Deborah Di Natale, said that the government cutting spending during the “worst housing crisis in living memory is utterly staggering.”
“Victoria is dead last of every state and territory for spending on social housing per person,” she said.
“This is despite Victoria having the highest number of people seeking support from a stretched specialist homelessness sector.
“One third of people seeking homelessness assistance in Australia are in Victoria, yet we have the lowest proportion of social housing in the country at just 2.88 per cent.
In the 2024-2025 period, the Victorian Government spent approximately $2.16 billion on social housing, in comparison to the 2023-24 period of $2.35 billion – marking a 9 per cent reduction.
The Victorian Housing Register (VHR) which is the official social housing listing in Victoria, currently has a public housing waiting period of over a year.
The first category outlines priority access for those who are unhoused, victims of family violence and those living with disabilities.
The second category are those who register their interest for social housing, pertaining to people who do not meet the criteria for priority housing but are seeking to live in social housing.
Currently, according to Homes Victoria, more than 56,000 people are currently waiting for social housing accommodation.
30,899 of those meet the priority accessibility criteria while 25,335 have registered their interest in living in public housing.
Ms Di Natale said this is a result of a stark reduction in social housing investments.
“People who desperately need public housing are spending years on the waiting list with devastating consequences. A quarter of households in greatest need waited 38 months or longer for public housing,” she said.
“The reduction in social housing investment is a government policy failure, pure and simple.
“Victoria has the resources to fix this crisis.
“What we need is the political will to build the homes Victorians desperately need.”
Paul McDonald, chief executive at Anglicare, a leading provider of out-of-home care services for young people and children with sites in Pakenham and Dandenong, said that the state needs to do more in ensuring young people who are unhoused are well taken care of.
“While we welcome the Victorian Government’s $8 billion Big Housing Build investment, we must be smarter about how we allocate social housing if we are serious about addressing youth homelessness,” said Mr McDonald.
“Young people make up almost one quarter of Australia’s homelessness population, but only three per cent of social housing is allocated to them.
“Among this group, more than half have recently left foster care and other forms of out-of-home care.
“Young care leavers must be prioritised in any social housing, the state has a clear role to play in their ongoing care, just as any good parent does.”
In the last 10 years the net increase of public housing in Victoria has been only 36.
