School of Social Sciences
Local government can help facilitate more effective responses to homelessness in our cities
Published on the 04 March 2026
‘Homelessness active’ councils use their presence in public spaces and knowledge of local services to facilitate connections. Photo: Adobe Stock images.
‘Homelessness active’ councils adopt supportive responses, facilitating service connections for people experiencing homelessness.
Local government has unique capacities to contribute to the homelessness response within their communities, research from UNSW’s School of Social Sciences has found.
While addressing homelessness is outside their mandate, councils face increasing pressure from communities to respond to visible manifestations of homelessness, says lead researcher Dr Andrew Clarke.
“With the post-pandemic explosion of housing issues and homelessness, these pressures have intensified in capital cities and beyond, including in regional areas that hadn't experienced significant homelessness before.”
This, together with their sense of responsibility to maintain public space, has prompted some councils to transform their approach to engaging with homelessness from historically compliance-driven to more supportive responses, the research found.
“There was a real sense these ‘homelessness active’ councils – councils actively involved in local efforts to address homelessness – were trying to go beyond just moving people on, cleaning up or confiscating belongings or installing defensive architecture.
“Instead ‘homelessness active’ councils use their presence and knowledge of local services to augment, facilitate and coordinate connections.”
The sub-study, part of the 2024 Australian Homelessness Monitor report, constitutes a national survey of all local government areas and three ‘homelessness active’ council case studies: a major metropolitan capital city; a former industrial regional city; and a coastal tourism city.
The survey and fieldwork examined: the homelessness challenges confronting local governments; how councils are responding to these challenges; and the barriers that councils face in contributing to homelessness responses and how these might be overcome.
The research was conducted in partnership with Homelessness Australia and funded by the Lord Mayor's Charitable Trust in Victoria and the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors.
The research found that ‘homelessness active’ councils performed a variety of supportive responses to homelessness, including: establishing partnerships with specialist homelessness services (88%); collecting data, for example, street counts or by-name lists (57%); facilitating homelessness service hubs, for example, by providing space/buildings to service providers (32%).
Councils also provided, or facilitated provision of, temporary accommodation or social/affordable housing (11% and 41% respectively)..
Increasing scale and intensity of homelessness reported
Homelessness challenges facing Australian local governments are significant in scale and growing in intensity; more than two thirds of responding councils (67%) identified homelessness as a significant, acute or very acute problem in their local government area (LGA), the survey found.
These challenges are acutely felt particularly by councils located in capital and regional cities, with 80% and 88% respectively reporting homelessness as a significant or greater problem. Of these, 85% reported actively contributing to local homelessness responses.
The sub-study responds to a gap in research and policy discussion with local government’s contribution to the national homelessness response historically overlooked.
“Despite their interactions with people experiencing homelessness, councils are not included in intergovernmental agreements that distribute responsibility and funding for relevant interventions,” Dr Clarke says.
“However, current pressures have produced significant interest in how ‘homelessness active’ councils are responding on the ground and what other councils might learn from them.”
Augmenting and facilitating specialist homelessness service responses
Developing and performing unique functions – including monitoring, referral and service coordination – has required ‘homelessness active’ councils to transform how staff across their organisations approach homelessness, the research found.
There is an emerging view amongst ‘homelessness active’ councils that homelessness is ‘everybody’s business’, requiring a whole-of-organisation response, Dr Clarke says.
“On the ground, park rangers, parking inspectors right through to people in libraries and community centres all encounter people experiencing homelessness, particularly people sleeping rough.
“These encounters provide an opportunity to refer people to services who might not be in those spaces quite as often.”
Local homelessness service providers reported that councils’ monitoring and referral activities improved their capacity to respond, for example, by identifying people sleeping rough or local ‘hot spots’.
One service provider (coastal case study) said: “[Council would] identify rough sleepers that had been isolated, needed to get accommodation … They’d send us a rough map of a bush area in a creek in a circle and a dropped pin, and I'd go out and look for them.”
While council workers have multiple touchpoints for those sleeping rough, they are less likely to interact with less visible forms of homelessness.
A council participant (regional case study) explained: “This doesn’t necessarily factor in … what I would deem to be more invisible homelessness, which is overcrowding in boarding houses and all the rest.”
Local councils also serve as conduits for bringing services together for a more coordinated response, the research found.
“Unlike different service providers, councils are not competing for funding or sector opportunities,” Dr Clarke says. “Their role as coordinators was seen as independent, impartial and trusted.”
‘Homelessness active’ councils face multiple barriers and challenges
Limited resourcing, a lack of clear mandate and difficulties balancing the management of public space with the needs of people on the street can limit councils’ impact, the research found.
Housing and housing insecurity is an intense and worsening problem both in Australia and internationally, Dr Clarke says. “Homelessness is the most acute form of housing deprivation; it’s a complex issue, but at base, it requires a housing response.
“If you're a person sleeping rough, unless you're able to get access to social housing – which has very long wait lists, tight prioritisation and stringent eligibility – you're not going to be a very competitive candidate for private rental.”
The lack of long-term affordable housing options means that even when services and people experiencing homelessness connect, people aren’t necessarily able to move off the streets or out of homelessness, he says.
“So they remain in place in local areas and are the target of concerned or upset citizens placing pressure on council to respond. Businesses and councils are very mindful of how spaces they manage are perceived, and whether people feel safe or comfortable being in those spaces.
“And of course, there's stigma and prejudice around homelessness. Local councils reported finding it very difficult to get outcomes beyond having to move that person on, to make the problem go away.”
So while councils can make significant contributions, they are dependent on policies and practices at other levels of government, he says. “They're not going to solve the problem on their own; council intervention is certainly no panacea.”
Councils’ emerging role in homelessness prevention
The research also identified the potential for councils’ monitoring capacities as to contribute to homelessness prevention.
Former local government homelessness manager and Churchill Fellow Leanne Mitchell advocates for greater attention to prevention in her research and consultancy work with local governments.
Ms Mitchell argues that, because “councils reach into many parts of the community with a broad health and wellbeing focus and also carry community planning and development responsibilities”, they have a unique capacity to contribute to local homelessness prevention efforts.
The research revealed developing prevention practices in the capital city case study. One participant said: “while we are very focused on the pointy end … of rough sleeping … [there is work] around acknowledging the breadth of work that councils do, that isn’t formally considered homelessness prevention but plays a really important role.
“So, things like youth services … providing a range of recreational, social, support … That’s part of it. The role that our maternal and child health nurses play in detecting the risk, potentially, of say a new mother becoming homeless, due to intimate partner violence, and the trigger points that they locate in their screening of new parents.
“The role that our library service plays, as one of the last remaining free, publicly accessible environments.”
Libraries have been highlighted as key spaces to leverage councils’ encounters with the public to support homelessness prevention, Dr Clarke says. “The capital city case study is running a pilot program with social workers in its libraries to help identify people at risk of homelessness.
“Whilst the councils in our other case studies were not yet engaged in homelessness prevention, both cited this as an area they intended to explore.”
The research was launched and shared with the homelessness sector in late 2024; with the NSW Government to consider how councils might play a greater role with state government support; and with the Municipal Association Victoria, the state’s peak body for councils.
“The research demonstrates that councils can play an active and meaningful role in homelessness responses, provided they prioritise support over compliance and enforcement,” Dr Clarke says.
“However, the success of their interventions depends heavily on higher levels of government stepping up and addressing the shortage of social housing that prevents people from leaving homelessness.”
School/Centre
Researcher
Dr Andrew Clarke
Pillar
Pillar 7: Advance economic and social prosperity
- Researchers
- News
- Our team
- References
