Specialist homelessness services annual report 2023–24

Throughout 2023–24, there were people who approached SHS agencies who did not receive all the services they required, known as, client’s unmet need for services. There may be a range of reasons an agency did not provide assistance. For example, the person may be seeking a specialised service not offered by that particular agency, the agency may not have the capacity to provide assistance at that time or the person may not be in the target group for the agency. 

For clients who are provided support, services provided to clients range from the direct provision of accommodation, such as a bed in a shelter, to more specialised services such as counselling and legal support. These services are generally either provided to the client directly by the agency or the client is referred to another agency for support. 

Clients’ unmet need for accommodation and housing assistance services

Housing and accommodation services provided by agencies include support to:

• access short-term or emergency accommodation, medium-term/transitional housing and/or long-term housing,
• sustain tenancy or prevent tenancy failure or eviction, and
• prevent foreclosures or for mortgage arrears.

In 2023–24, SHS clients most commonly needed (Figure UNMET.1, Supplementary table CLIENTS.24):

• short-term or emergency accommodation (109,000 clients or 39% of all clients); nearly 63,100 (58% of those requesting this service) were provided with assistance and a further 12,000 (11%) were referred to another agency for this service type.
• assistance to sustain tenancy/prevent eviction (84,500 clients, 30%); most clients (70,900, 84% of those who needed it) received assistance to sustain tenancy directly from the specialist homelessness agency.

While the number of clients requesting either short-term or emergency accommodation or long-term housing were similar in 2023–24, a substantial proportion of clients who were not provided or referred for long-term accommodation (70% of clients who needed long-term accommodation) highlights the complexity of SHS agencies assisting clients to find suitable long-term housing. In some instances, this may be because the agency’s service offering may not include long-term housing options, however, may also be an indicator of the lack of affordable housing available in the area.

Figure UNMET.1: Clients with unmet need for accommodation and housing assistance services, 2023–24

Clients’ unmet need for general and specialised services

Some types of assistance provided by SHS agencies can be described as general support and assistance. These services include advice and information, material aid, meals and living skills. Agencies were able to meet the general needs of most SHS clients in 2023–24 (Figure UNMET.2, Supplementary table CLIENTS.24):

• More than 225,000 clients needed advice/information; 99% were provided assistance.
• Almost 152,000 clients requesting advocacy/liaison; 97% were provided with assistance.

Specialised services refer to those services that require specific knowledge or skills and are usually undertaken by someone with qualifications. Some of these types of services, such as legal information and training or drug/alcohol counselling, were less commonly met. This may be because of the specialist skills required to provide these services and the limited availability of these skills within the SHS agencies and other referral services offered to clients:

In 2023–24:

• Health/medical services were needed by almost 1 in 10 clients (7.8% or over 21,700 clients).
• Mental health services, including psychological, psychiatric and mental health services, were one of the most common specialised services needed by clients; these needs were frequently unmet with 33% neither provided nor referred to other agencies for these services.
• Immigration/cultural services were needed by over 18,500 SHS clients; most were provided with this type of service (85%).

Figure UNMET.2: Clients with unmet needs for general and specialised services and service provision status, 2023–24