Housing insecurity and homelessness are soaring in NSW, according to a new report by Homelessness NSW and Astrolabe.
According to the data in the report over the past five years rough sleeping has surged, social housing waitlists have blown out and rents have shot up, vastly outpacing wages.
The report, titled 'Rough realities: Rising homelessness and housing insecurity in Sydney and NSW', showed that since 2020 the median weekly rent has risen significantly all across the state, both regionally and along the coast and metropolitan areas with a large number of LGAs in deep rental stress and the average rent eating up more than 35 percent of the average household income.
The report also showed that the number of people sleeping rough across the state has soared by more than 50 percent with the number in 2021 at 1,314 individuals and a reported 2,192 people in 2025.
“The housing crisis is fast becoming a housing catastrophe,” Homelessness NSW CEO Dominique Rowe said.
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“The soaring cost of renting is forcing more and more people to sleep in cars, tents or in the street and the dire shortage of social housing is keeping them there.
“Underfunded homelessness services are at a breaking point and cannot keep up with surging demand.
"This situation has dramatically worsened in the past few years.
“Housing should be the government’s first, second and third priority.
"Its action so far pales in comparison to the scale of the disaster unfolding before our eyes.
"We urgently need more funding for homelessness services and a significant increase in social housing.”
Astrolabe Managing Director Belinda Comninos said the housing system was under severe stress not only in the bigger centres but in regional and rural areas as well.
“Bushfires, floods, and COVID-19 caused severe disruption that both affected the housing market and inundated struggling support services,” she said.
“At the same time, changes to construction codes and escalating material, labour, energy, and finance costs have hugely set back housing development.
“The way out of this crisis is to build.
"We urgently need reforms to deliver quality housing at speed and scale.
"Current activities are still too passive.
"Instead, we must act quickly with direct spending on infrastructure and investment in different types of housing.
"We need it all – private, community and social housing."
Ms Rowe said Homelessness NSW is calling on the Government to provide a commitment to increase social housing stock from 4.7 percent to 10 percent and to deliver a 30 percent increase in baseline funding for specialist homelessness services.
The report, which was released last week, can be read online at https://homelessnessnsw.org.au/.
