Service geography
Key findings and insights
In 2024–25:
- Most SHS clients were supported by services in Major cities (177,000 clients).
- The rate of SHS clients in Remote and very remote areas was 3.7 times the rate in Major cities.
- Clients supported in Major cities and Inner regional areas received the highest median number of nights of accommodation.
Accessing services can be increasingly difficult the further away a client lives from a major city (ABS 2023). The use of Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) varies across regions, influenced by local service availability, housing supply, affordability, and community needs.
This section examines client service needs and characteristics based on the location of the SHS agency. That is, the areas where clients first received support. Although clients may access services in multiple remoteness area, they are assigned to a single area based on the SHS agency where they first sought support during 2024–25. Agency locations were classified into remoteness areas based on the 2021 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) (see Technical notes) (ABS 2023).
Some SHS agencies operate state-wide and provide support to many clients via phone. In these cases, the recorded service location may not accurately reflect a client’s actual location.
For the purposes of interpreting regional service trends in this section, ‘urban areas’ refer to Major cities and Inner and Outer regional areas and ‘remote areas’ refer to Remote and Very remote areas, unless stated otherwise.
Clients accessing SHS in urban and remote areas in 2024–25
The highest rate of SHS clients was in Remote and very remote areas (337 per 10,000 population), 3.7 times the rate in Major Cities.
The number and rate of clients accessing SHS services varied by remoteness area in 2024–25 (Figure REG.1, supplementary tables HIST.REG and REG.7).
- The number of clients in Remote and very remote areas has generally increased since 2011–12, at an average annual rate of 3.6% per year, but only represents 5.9% of all clients.
- Clients in Inner regional areas on average received the longest amount of support, with a median of 74 days of support in 2024–25, an increase from 65 days in 2020–21.
- The median number of nights accommodated was greatest for clients in Major cities (50 nights) and Inner regional areas (42 nights) in 2024–25, compared with 29 nights for clients in Outer regional areas and 4 nights for clients in Remote and very remote areas.
Figure REG.1: Service use patterns for SHS clients by remoteness area, 2020–21 to 2024–25
Bar chart shows across all five years, clients in inner regional areas had the highest median number of support days.
Characteristics of clients in urban and remote areas
Almost all SHS clients who were born overseas or had a current mental health issue accessed support in urban areas rather than remote areas.
In 2024–25, the characteristics of clients accessing SHS agencies differed between urban and remote areas. Compared with clients in remote areas, those in urban areas:
- were more likely to seek assistance because of housing crisis such as eviction (19%), whereas clients in remote areas more often sought support due to inadequate or inappropriate dwelling conditions (11%) (Supplementary table REG.1).
- were less likely to be aged under 18 years (accounting for 28% of clients in Major Cities compared with 26% of clients in Remote and very remote areas (Supplementary table REG.2).
- included a lower proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) clients, with more than 9 in 10 (92%) clients in remote areas identifying as First Nations (Supplementary table INDIGENOUS.6).
- accounted for almost all clients born overseas (99%) (Supplementary table CLIENTS.6).
- accounted for most clients with a current mental health issue (98%) (Supplementary table CLIENTS.46).
Services needed and provided
Requests for short-term accommodation were more often met for clients in remote areas than for those in non-remote areas
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 SHS agency or other specialised service.
In 2024–25 (Figure REG.2, Supplementary table REG.4):
- The need for short-term or emergency accommodation was highest among SHS clients of SHS agencies in remote areas – around 58% of clients needed this type of service.
- Around 93% of requests for short-term accommodation were met by agencies in remote areas (provided or referred), while clients of services in Major cities and Inner regional areas were less likely to receive this type of accommodation (70% and 57%, respectively).
- Need for mental health services was higher among clients of services in Major cities (8.6%) and Inner regional areas (7.4%) than those in Outer regional areas (5.9%) and remote areas (3.1%).
Figure REG.2: Clients by services needed, by provision status, by remoteness area, 2024–25
Stacked bar graph shows long-term housing was the most needed accommodation provision service in major cities and the least provided.
Outcomes at the end of support
The following section highlights changes in clients’ housing situation between the start and end of support. That is, the place they were living before and after receiving assistance from a SHS agency. The data includes only clients who ceased receiving SHS support during the financial year and were no longer receiving ongoing support from a SHS agency.
Specifically, it compares clients’ housing at the start of their first support period in 2024–25 with the end of their last support period in 2024–25. It does not capture changes that occurred during a support period, nor changes throughout the year between different support periods.
Around 7 in 10 (69%) clients in Remote and very remote area were in stable housing at the end of support in 2024–25, compared with around 2 in 3 clients in other areas (Supplementary table REG.5 and Figure REG.3).
At the end of support, clients in Major cities and Inner regional areas were most likely to be living in private housing (43% in each area type) in 2024–25; clients in remote areas were most commonly in public/community housing (58%).
Figure REG.3: Clients with closed support, by remoteness area, by housing situation at the beginning and end of support, 2024–25
Sankey diagram shows most clients started and ended support in private or other housing for all remoteness areas except Remote and Very remote.
