Submission: NSW Homelessness Strategy 2025-2035

The Tenants’ Union of NSW welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the development of NSW Homelessness Strategy for the next 10 years.

The NSW housing system, and in particular the private rental market, has failed to ensure everyone has access to safe, secure, affordable housing. This failure increases both the risk of homelessness for vulnerable renting households, and the barriers to people developing a pathway out of homelessness. This submission focuses on the insufficient protections and supports provided for people who rent their homes.

Everyone deserves a home. Housing is the basis from which we ensure our communities’ well-being. This is not simply about the material, physical and structural protections housing provides, but also a sense of home and belonging within a wider community.

The experience of residential renting is built on the threat of homelessness as behavioural control. Across private, public and community housing people renting their homes are constantly reminded that they are always potentially one infraction and a matter of weeks away from homelessness. When considered as part of a homelessness strategy, it is apparent that this use of the threat of homelessness works against the aim of preventing homelessness. A person facing a financial or health crisis is made homeless despite clear risk of homelessness. A new approach needs to be developed that recognises in real, practical ways that an eviction-based renting system works against a homelessness strategy aimed at preventing homelessness.

If priority is placed on the Strategy’s guiding principle that prevention is prioritised then there will be better outcomes for renters and less pressure placed on homelessness services. A combination of improving security for renters from eviction, and increasing support and finances available to renters, would significantly reduce the need for Housing First interventions. Homelessness reform also requires ensuring that people are not evicted from crisis - short term housing into homelessness when there is no long term housing available. In 2023/24 Specialist Homeless Services through their work assisted 37 % of their clients into social or private rental housing. That still leaves a large number of people without stable housing and highlights that there are insuffi cient options for housing people who are experiencing homelessness. The longer a person experiences homelessness the more complex the issues they are dealing with become and the harder it is for them to overcome these issues.

We have focused our response on reforms that relate primarily to the Strategy focus area of homelessness is rare. This involves a focus on making sure policies and practices reduce the likelihood people will experience homelessness. The reforms we outline require leveraging all areas of government to address systemic factors and gaps between processes which contribute to homelessness.

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