Housing is the big issue facing Australia at the moment.
Interest rates are high. Prices everywhere are high. Families with mortgages are feeling the pinch – but what about those who have been pushed off the housing ladder entirely, and are now threatened with homelessness?
For one NSW Central Coast couple, the prospect of losing the home they had rented for 16 years became so frightening they began planning their own deaths.
For a 50-year-old Melbourne man, more than two decades of professional experience counted for little when a job disappeared and hundreds of applications failed to produce another.
And for men like Shane Wilson, who has spent years moving between homelessness and support services, finding a place to sleep is only the beginning of a much longer journey.
Their circumstances are different, but each story reveals the scale of the problem Australia is currently facing, and how quickly housing insecurity can overwhelm people who have spent their lives trying to get by.
As rents and everyday expenses soar, the experiences of those at risk of homelessness are challenging the idea that it is a problem confined to people sleeping rough.
‘Bawling her eyes out’
When Rebecca Stanford visited her elderly neighbours on the NSW Central Coast one day earlier this year, she found 78-year-old Viv in tears.
Viv and Ted had been renting the same property for 16 years, but rising living costs had made their $550-a-week rent increasingly unaffordable.
Viv had spent years caring for her mother before she died last year, as electricity bills, medication and specialist appointments continued to become more expensive.
The couple had exhausted their savings and applied for hundreds of rental properties they could afford, offering between $400 and $450 a week. Despite having a strong rental history and no pets, they were unable to secure another home.
When they sought government assistance, they were reportedly told that having a car meant they were not considered among the most urgent cases of homelessness, because they could technically sleep in it.
For two people in their late 70s and 80s, the prospect was devastating.
“Viv was bawling her eyes out,” Ms Stanford told news.com.au.
“They were speaking about the fact that they were out of options and pretty much suicide was the only option, how there was no help, how they’d just been priced out of everything, their rent had gone up.”
Ms Stanford, who has known the couple for years, promised she would find a way to ensure they were not left homeless.
Her young daughters offered $400 from their own birthday savings, prompting Ms Stanford to establish a GoFundMe campaign in March.
The response was overwhelming, with donations pouring in and offers of properties arriving from across Australia and overseas.
Ms Stanford said the couple had been too proud to accept ongoing monthly donations, wanting the money to go towards other people in need once their own housing crisis had been resolved.
The campaign was eventually closed after raising tens of thousands of dollars, allowing the couple to move into a new home.
But the financial and physical toll of the ordeal was considerable. Moving costs, outstanding rental expenses and medical bills ate into the funds, and both Ted and Viv ended up in hospital shortly after relocating.
The couple had to downsize after decades of accumulating possessions, but Ms Stanford said their new landlord had assured them they would not be forced out or hit with rent increases.
The community also rallied around them, with people delivering food, chocolates and flowers, while the removalist who helped them move later drove one of the couple to hospital.
“It was just so nice for two people that had been forgotten to be remembered again,” Ms Stanford said.
The experience also demonstrated how much difference ordinary people could make when institutions appeared unable to provide a solution.
Hundreds of applications, no job
For Paul Broadway, the threat of homelessness arose after he lost his job.
The Melbourne-based 53-year-old had spent more than 20 years working in human resources across healthcare, education, manufacturing and hospitality, including in management roles.
But after a temporary position ended, a permanent job he had expected to take up was rescinded.
He spent months looking for work before his savings ran out, leaving him struggling to cover rent, utilities, car repayments, groceries and the cost of caring for his dog.
He registered for Centrelink assistance, but faced a waiting period before receiving payments.
With bills mounting and no clear prospect of another job, he turned to GoFundMe late one night.
By the following morning, nearly $1000 had been donated.
The donations gave him some breathing space, but the uncertainty remained.
Over five months, Mr Broadway estimated he applied for up to 500 positions, tailoring applications, working with recruitment agencies and rewriting his resume.
After a short-term human resources role with a council, he moved into a learning position that was due to end within weeks of the interview.
He is now looking for work in that field, hoping to draw on skills developed throughout his career.
But the repeated rejections have taken a toll on his confidence and mental health, particularly as he struggled to help his 81-year-old father with expenses.
“It just mentally stuffs you up,” he said.
“You lose faith in your skill. You lose faith in the experience that you’ve got, and you lose faith in the industry that you’ve dedicated nearly 25 years to,” he said.
Mr Broadway had made paying rent his priority, putting money aside from each pay to ensure he could remain in his apartment. Instead, he entered hardship arrangements for credit card debt, car repayments and other bills.
He said the possibility of homelessness had changed his understanding of people sleeping rough.
“I used to … see people that were obviously homeless … begging for money or sleeping on the street [and think] ‘How can they let that happen to themselves?’” he said.
“But now I look at it and go, you know what? They may not have had any control over that.”
Without the donations and the temporary council role, he believed he could have been about a month away from losing his rental.
“It definitely puts a different perspective on it.”
The experience has also forced him to change his lifestyle. He buys groceries in bulk, stretches meals across several servings, limits driving and avoids restaurants, bars and other discretionary spending.
Even filling his relatively small car had become a shock, with petrol costing almost $100.
Mr Broadway said he had been surprised by the generosity of strangers as well as friends and family, including one donor who explained they had experienced similar hardship themselves.
“It was absolutely amazing to get assistance from someone you don’t even know,” he said.
“People are good people, most of the time.”
A place to rebuild
At Sydney’s Matthew Talbot Homeless Hostel in Woolloomooloo, Shane Wilson has found support through some of the most difficult periods of his life.
Known as “Rooster” because of his loyalty to the Sydney Roosters, Mr Wilson first arrived at the hostel in the late 2000s, after personal circumstances left him needing accommodation.
He has since built connections through the hostel and the neighbouring Ozanam Learning Centre, where activities including cooking and gardening have helped him establish a more stable routine.
He now lives in social housing in Glebe, supported by St Vincent De Paul’s case management, and continues to participate in community programs.
His journey has not been straightforward. Earlier this year, he was hospitalised with tuberculosis and spent more than three weeks in isolation at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
After being discharged, he was so weak he struggled to walk even short distances and had lost about 10kg.
Staff at the Matthew Talbot Clinic encouraged him to stay at the hostel while he recovered, providing meals and accommodation as he regained his strength.
“I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ Because I’ve got my house keys, because I live in a unit,” Mr Wilson said.
“But they nagged me to stay inside the clinic free of charge.”
He accepted the offer, later moving into a private room at the hostel.
The support helped him through a period when his health could easily have undermined the stability he had worked to achieve.
Mr Wilson said the hostel had changed over the years, including improvements to privacy and accommodation. He still visits on weekends to play Scrabble, spend time with other residents and tend to vegetables in the rooftop garden.
He has also given up drinking, after recognising the impact alcohol was having on his life.
“I was like, ‘What am I doing to myself? I’ve got to kick this habit out of my life’,” he said.
Cooking has become another focus. He helps prepare food for the community, experiments with recipes and has taken up photography, with some of his images expected to feature in an upcoming exhibition.
He hopes to pursue further study in horticulture.
A growing pressure on homelessness services
Mark Purchase, accommodation manager at the Matthew Talbot Hostel, has worked with St Vincent de Paul Society NSW for 20 years, including seven years managing the service.
He said the profile of people seeking help had changed significantly, particularly since the Covid pandemic, with rising rents and living costs pushing more working Australians towards homelessness.
“When I first started, you would almost say a typical homeless person would be like 50 to 60,” Mr Purchase said.
“But of late, post-Covid, with the increase in rent spiked everywhere, cost of living as well, it tends to be people that have been employed.”
He said people were increasingly arriving after losing the ability to pay rent or cover medical expenses following an illness.
“Landlords are just like, you can’t pay your rent, so that’s it,” he said.
Homelessness is not always visible. Mr Purchase said people were increasingly sleeping in cars, staying in temporary accommodation or moving between places as they tried to avoid sleeping on the street.
But those arrangements could be precarious, with people forced to move on when police or rangers arrived.
“So where else do you go? And that’s the biggest question,” he said.
The Matthew Talbot Hostel has 56 beds, each providing residents with their own room, alongside case management, meals and access to a specialist health clinic.
The service is regularly at capacity. Its clinic supported 613 people in the past year, providing almost 10,000 appointments to people who may otherwise struggle to access healthcare.
The scale of the wider problem is stark.
The latest NSW statewide street count found more than 2300 people sleeping rough across the state, a 5 per cent increase over the previous year. The City of Sydney recorded 296 people sleeping rough, down from 346 a year earlier, but still the highest number of any NSW local government area.
The 2021 Census counted more than 122,000 people experiencing homelessness across Australia, including about 35,000 in NSW. The results of the 2026 Census will not be released for another 12 to 18 months.
Meanwhile, 71,317 applicants are on the NSW social housing waiting list. Because each application represents a household, the number of people waiting for housing is substantially higher.
Mr Purchase said homelessness could affect anyone who lacked a financial safety net when something went wrong.
“It could be you, me, anyone,” he said.
“If something goes wrong and there’s no backup support, what’s your next step?”
He said the hostel could not accommodate everyone who needed help, despite staff doing their best to connect people with housing and other services.
More accommodation and caseworkers would make a difference, he said, but the resources available were finite.
For Mr Purchase, the most important part of the work was helping people regain a measure of control over their lives.
“Just coming here can be a lifesaver because, you know, what’s the option? Sleeping on the streets?” he said.
“Even if it was a pleasant night, you still got people walking around, you’ve got no freedom, you’ve got no privacy, nothing like that.”
The experiences of Ted and Viv, Mr Broadway and Mr Wilson show how homelessness can follow from circumstances that might once have seemed manageable: a rent increase, a lost job, a health crisis or the absence of someone to turn to.
They also reveal the importance of the support that can prevent a temporary crisis from becoming a permanent one.
For Ted and Viv, it was a neighbour and a community fundraiser. For Mr Broadway, it was the generosity of donors and the prospect of finding work. For Mr Wilson, it has been years of relationships and support that have helped him move towards a more stable life.
But as Mr Purchase sees it, the need for that help is growing.
And for those who find themselves without a home, the question is not simply where they will sleep tonight, but whether they will have somewhere safe to go tomorrow.