The policy on homelessness targets the cycle that leaves people with nowhere to live. Photo: Dominic Giannini.
The Minns Labor Government has released the NSW Homelessness Strategy 2025-2035, a 10-year plan to reduce the rates of homelessness and stop the cycle that leaves people without a roof over their heads.
Led by Homes NSW, the strategy will run until 2035 and is the first of its kind in NSW. The initiative’s focus is on early intervention, long-term housing solutions and local coordination.
It has been developed in collaboration with homelessness and housing services, and people who have been homeless themselves. The strategy outlines a concerted approach to reform across government, local services, communities and the homelessness and housing sectors.
Measures included in the first stage of implementation include:
- Development of collaboration between local housing networks, homelessness services, housing providers and councils to identify and resolve issues where they will have the most impact.
- Supplementation of hotel and motel stays with more “appropriate” homelessness accommodation, delivered in tandem with supports tailored to the individual’s or family’s needs.
- The establishment of a NSW Street Sleeping Registry to inform the coordination of housing and support efforts. Rather than a person having to explain their situation each time they receive support, a registry can be checked to understand a person’s housing problems.
- Adoption of a Housing First approach for NSW so that homeless people can access stable housing as quickly as possible.
- A targeted response for young people and Indigenous people who face unique challenges.
- Increasing inter-agency coordination, referral pathways and service system responses to reduce the likelihood of exits from a government service to homelessness.
“We are formalising and embedding the Housing First approach as the official government policy to end homelessness in NSW,” Minister for Housing and Homelessness Rose Jackson said.
”This approach ensures that people have stable housing first, backed in by the support they need to rebuild their lives.
“This strategy is a first for our state. It’s a game-changing, long-term approach to homelessness that shifts our focus from crisis management to prevention and support.”
The government said it would continue to work with the sector’s stakeholders as the reforms were implemented. Past reforms include:
- Delivering more than 1700 homes over the past year, which the government said was the largest increase in government-built public, community and affordable housing in more than a decade.
- Investment of a record $6.6 billion into social housing and homelessness through the Building Homes for NSW program.
- Upgrades to more than 6000 social homes.
- Reduction of the social housing waitlist in NSW to an average of eight months.
- First use of modular housing for mass public housing, with more than 90 modular public homes set to be provided over the next year.
Homelessness NSW CEO Dom Rowe said: “Our sector has been calling for a whole-of-government response to this crisis, one that acknowledges a need to respond now but also sets a reform agenda for the future.
“The Homelessness Strategy answers that call and sets a path to a better future for people at risk of homelessness and the services that support them.”
More information is available on the NSW Government’s Homelessness Strategy website.
