OUR SAY: No easy way exists to cut homelessness on Border but we must find solutions

While there are people who continue to do so, overnight in shop doorways or in parks, the numbers are relatively minuscule.

Instead, you might have a young mother who cannot get a rental home, because the public waiting list is years' long and private rental is too cost-prohibitive and competitive.

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It can be the family who flees a domestic violence perpetrator only to find that crisis accommodation is the only thing on offer, and only temporarily.

Couch surfing, sleeping in cars, or just bunking in with friends until the welcome mat wears out, are the other common scenarios.

But the fact is that this type of homelessness is getting worse, due to the ever-climbing cost of living and the flow-on effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Solutions such as more government investment in public housing stock, something neglected for many years, have been raised in the past with limited success, though the local and state government partnership announced last year to build homes in East Albury was a very positive step.

Nevertheless, homelessness is said to be worsening and it's clear that we all, as a community and wider society, need to come up with solutions.

Just recently, ABS data revealed homelessness across Victoria rose by 24 per cent between the 2016 and 2021 Censuses, with 30,660 people going without a safe and secure place to call home on any given night. In NSW that figure was just above 35,000 people.

And this is not just a big city phenomenon, something attested to by Border welfare workers.

St Vincent de Paul's Society's Shantelle Lidden says the situation is "definitely getting worse" in Albury, with referrals growing and "a lack of housing options" due in part to a decline in temporary accommodation providers.

No simple solutions exist for homelessness, but that does mean we cannot try harder as a community to do what we can to ensure everyone has a safe roof over their head.

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