Efforts to house all Australians make slow but steady progress

The latest official data confirms that poverty and homelessness are gradually easing, as Alan Austin reports.

FAR TOO MANY Australians are still “doing it tough”, to use Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ expression whenever he is quizzed on poverty. However, in June 2025, homeless citizens comprised a lower percentage of the population than at any time since records have been kept.

Several recent documents affirm this welcome news. The latest housing survey from the Bureau of Statistics shows more than 4,000 public sector dwellings were approved in the year to November. That follows more than 4,200 approvals the year before. Two years of government housing above 8,000 haven’t happened since 2010, when exceptional public investment was needed to avert a devastating recession during the Global Financial Crisis.

More significantly, the total number of approvals for all new dwellings, both public and private, over the last 12 months exceeded 195,000, significantly above recent levels.

Facts from the coalface confirm poverty is easing

As the 2025 report card on Australia’s economy is filled in, the good news is outweighing the bad.

Massive dump of detailed data

Last Thursday, the Productivity Commission (PC) issued an extraordinarily comprehensive pile of information. Three reports – 18A on housing, 19A on homelessness and the GA housing services overview – comprise 113 files with hundreds of thousands of individual data points, answering almost every question imaginable about Australian domiciles — except one.

We know how many homeless folks were recently housed, how many returned to the streets, the condition of rented houses, rents paid and how many poor people live in remote regions. Exasperatingly, we don’t know how many Australians are still homeless.

This is not just frustrating for those wanting to track outcomes accurately. Worse, it allows shonky agencies like the Australian Council for Social Services (ACOSS) and mendacious media outlets to falsify the situation. They want us to believe poverty and homelessness are worsening every year. Last week’s data confirms the opposite — at least since 2022.

Aussies helped out of poverty

A total of 288,970 people were helped in 2025 with a range of services for people in need. That’s up from 280,078 in 2024 and well above the 272,694 in 2022.

People facing hardship who reported their needs were met through the year increased to 281,391 in 2025, up from 272,689 the year before and just 256,770 in 2022.

Clients who found accommodation but then returned to homelessness are declining. In 2021 and 2022, 11.5% of this cohort returned to their cars or tents. That fell to 10.3% in 2024 and just 9.8% last year.

Social service clients now in secure independent housing numbered 210,841 in 2025, an all-time high and an increase of 9,351 over 2022.

Other encouraging data points in 2025 include:

Welfare cases closed with an agreed case management plan numbered 393,996, up from 389,370 in 2024.
Households categorised as ‘in greatest need’ fell from 14,496 in 2024 to 13,471.
The proportion of households in greatest need who waited more than two years for public housing decreased from 25.5% in 2024 to 22.8%.
Clients needing income assistance fell to 8,122, the lowest in the five years of PC data. That’s down from 9,386 in 2024 and 10,232 in 2021.
Commonwealth rent assistance reached a record $6.42 billion, up 23.9% on the level two years ago.

These confirm that many thousands were lifted above the poverty line last year.

Increased social housing stock

The Productivity Commission shows social housing sheltered 417,981 families in 2022. Last year, that hit 429,212, with 11,231 more families housed. That’s more in the last three years than the Coalition managed in the preceding five — which included the COVID period when tens of billions of dollars were wastefully splashed around. See chart below.

States share responsibility

The incompetent newsrooms have highlighted two negative numbers, which they have misinterpreted as usual.

One is that waiting lists for community housing for clients in greatest need increased by 6,027 in 2025 to 35,854. That’s a substantial surge and a disturbing percentage – up 20.2% – in defiance of national trends.

Analysis of the outcomes across the states, however, shows the Queensland rise was 6,380, which exceeds the entire nationwide increment. The rest of the country saw a decline.

The same happened with clients experiencing “persistent homelessness”, which jumped in 2025 to 41,081, up more than 3,000 on 2024. Close examination confirms that most of that deterioration was among Indigenous people in Queensland and the Northern Territory, following recent changes of government from Labor to the Coalition.

Effective measures implemented

The current steady reduction in poverty and homelessness is the result of a dual strategy. The Albanese Government has strengthened the economy overall and targeted resources specifically to alleviate hardship.

Direct measures include:

The weekly minimum wage was lifted 16.7% from $812.44 in 2022 to $948.00 now.
Inflation, which peaked under the Coalition’s policies to 8.44%, is now down to 3.76%.
The youth allowance, unemployment benefits, age pension and commonwealth rent assistance have all increased substantially, well above inflation.
Wages and benefits have risen faster than prices for the last nine quarters.
More than 1.2 million jobs have been created since the 2022 Election, with job participation hitting new record highs.
Income tax rate changes have increased the living standards of low-income families.
Investment in social housing has increased, as discussed above. Recurrent spending is up 13.3% in 2025 over 2022 levels. Capital outlays are up 28.3%. See chart below.

More resources still required

While positive signs abound, hardship is still severe in many sectors, particularly among Indigenous populations.

The latest data confirms the trend reported earlier here, here and here that poverty and homelessness are reducing. Except perhaps in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

We will know for sure when we see the findings of the 2026 Census.