Most people picture the same scenario when they hear the word “homeless”: a mentally ill or drunk man sleeping rough on a city bench. This harmful misconception can have very real consequences.
Myths about homelessness shape how society responds to it. They affect funding decisions, policy priorities, and the way people who struggle to secure stable accommodation are treated every day.
In reality, there’s no one way to experience homelessness. To support clarity, compassion and action across our community, this article debunks the most common stereotypes for homelessness in Australia.
8 myths about homelessness in Australia
1. Homelessness means sleeping on the streets
Rough sleepers might be the most stereotypical face of homelessness, but they only account for 6% of people experiencing it in Australia.¹
The other 94% often go unnoticed and unrecorded, making the homelessness crisis easy to underestimate.
Hidden homelessness describes people with no home of their own who don’t appear in official figures because they’re sleeping on a friend’s couch, staying temporarily with family, or moving between emergency accommodation, motels, shelters, and cars.
None of these situations offers security or stability. All of them qualify as homelessness.
2. People experience homelessness because they don’t want to work
There’s an unfair misconception that homelessness comes down to laziness or a lack of willingness to work. This harmful stereotype is so far from the truth.
With Australia’s housing crisis, having a job doesn’t always mean someone can afford a safe place to live or other basic necessities. Many people work part-time, casually, seasonally or in low-paid roles where their income isn’t enough to keep up with rising rents.
For example, just 2.2% of rentals are affordable for ambulance workers, less than 1% are affordable for early childhood educators, and only 0.8% are affordable for hospitality workers.²
Other hard-working professionals lose housing after a sudden event, such as job loss, illness, family violence, relationship breakdown, medical bills or an unexpected financial setback.
People experiencing homelessness can also face practical barriers to getting or keeping a job. These include having no fixed address, no reliable transport, limited access to a phone or internet, missing identification documents, gaps in employment history, discrimination, poor health, or difficulty accessing clean clothes and showers.
With the right housing and support, many people move back into stable work. Ultimately, a secure home provides a stable foundation to focus on employment.
3. People experiencing homelessness are mostly old men
When thinking of homelessness, most people seem to imagine an older man, sleeping rough, dishevelled. This stereotype doesn’t paint the full picture.
In 2024-25, 60% of specialist homelessness service clients were female.³ The largest single group seeking help were people who had experienced family and domestic violence, making up 40% of all clients, most of them women and children.³ Supporting research shows that one in six young Australians has experienced homelessness.⁴
Older women are also one of the fastest-growing groups facing homelessness, often for reasons that build slowly over a lifetime. Years spent out of the workforce as carers can leave women with little superannuation and limited financial independence. Divorce, widowhood, and rising rents then tip the balance.
Therefore, homelessness doesn’t have a single face. The sooner that stereotype breaks down, the sooner we can help more people.
4. Most people experiencing homelessness have mental health issues
Mental illness affects some people experiencing homelessness, but it doesn’t define the majority. Around 31% of Specialist Homelessness Service clients in 2024-25 had a current mental health issue, which means roughly two-thirds did not.³
The relationship between homelessness and mental health runs in both directions.
Untreated mental health conditions can disrupt employment, strain relationships, and create the financial instability that leads to losing housing.
From there, homelessness itself can cause serious mental illness. The chronic stress of sleeping rough, the threat of violence, poor nutrition, and social isolation all take a serious toll on a person’s well-being.
With mental health support services already stretched, many people experiencing homelessness don’t have access to these systems. Without that connection to care, the cycle between unstable housing and deteriorating mental health becomes difficult to break.
5. Most people experiencing homelessness are alcohol or drug addicts
There’s a widespread assumption that addiction drives homelessness, but the reality is far more nuanced.
Only around 8.5% of Specialist Homelessness Service clients in 2024-25 reported problematic drug or alcohol use. That figure has fallen over the past decade, dropping from 11.8 clients per 10,000 people in 2011-12 to 10.2 in 2024-25.³
Moreover, substance use is usually a response to homelessness, rather than the cause of it.
Research from homelessness services in Melbourne found that 43% of people experiencing homelessness reported alcohol or other drug problems, but two-thirds of those individuals developed the problem after becoming homeless, not before.⁵
The stress of sourcing food, managing untreated health conditions, and being cut off from family and community is a weight that builds every.
For some, substances become a way to cope with that burden, or to manage symptoms of mental illness that go untreated without stable housing.
6. People experiencing homelessness are dangerous
Most people experiencing homelessness are just trying to get through the day. Behaviours like sleeping in public spaces, sheltering in doorways, and asking for money are attempts to survive, not commit a crime.
In fact, research shows that the danger runs in the opposite direction to what most people assume.
Assault, robbery, and other violence are disproportionately common experiences for people without stable housing, because sleeping rough leaves them without protection.
For example, people experiencing homelessness are 13 times more likely to experience violence and 47 times more likely to be victims of theft than the general public.⁶
Yet the criminal stereotype sticks, and it closes doors that were already challenging to open.
7. Homelessness is a choice
Nobody gives up a safe, stable home by choice. The factors that lead to homelessness, and that keep people there, are far more complex than a personal decision.
Homelessness is the endpoint of many interwoven pressures: job loss, family breakdown, domestic violence, mental illness, childhood trauma, sexual abuse, grief, and a rental market that has outpaced what low-income earners can afford.
Getting back on stable ground is its own battle.
People experiencing homelessness often can’t access the support they need because they lack transport to reach it, discrimination blocks them at the door, or the system requires a fixed address to access services that would help them get one.
Other times, the systemic support simply isn’t there.
8. There’s enough affordable housing in Australia
Australia does not have enough affordable housing. Over 640,000 households are currently in housing need, a number projected to climb to 940,000 by 2041.⁷
Behind those figures are real people: families on waiting lists that stretch years, individuals cycling through crisis accommodation, and workers on low incomes priced out of the private rental market.
Unfortunately, public and community housing can’t absorb this demand. In many states, waiting lists run to a decade or more.
Meeting this shortage requires sustained investment in social housing stock, reform of rental laws, and planning systems that prioritise affordability over speculation.
After all, safe, stable housing is a basic human right, and closing that gap is a government responsibility.
One in Ten: how to help people experiencing homelessness
For too long, Australian housing policy has relied heavily on the private market to deliver homes that low and moderate-income households can afford.
This approach has resulted in too many people being priced out of suitable housing, even when they’re working, studying or receiving support.
Without urgent action, Australia’s housing shortage will continue to affect more than people without a home.
It will place greater pressure on homelessness services, health systems, schools and employers.
It will also make it harder for today’s children and young people to imagine a future where safe, secure housing is within reach.
The only solution is to build social and affordable housing at speed and scale.
Our One in Ten strategy calls for the government to ensure that at least one in every ten new homes is social or affordable housing.
This long-term investment would give more people the stable foundation they need to rebuild their lives, supporting stronger, healthier and more resilient communities.
Support the call and take action with Home In Place
Understanding the reality of homelessness in Australia is the first step towards tackling it. Today, people from all walks of life can find themselves without a home, whether it’s your child’s teacher, the barista who makes your coffee, or another parent at school drop-off.
Help us build the momentum to help them. Contact your local member of parliament, share our One In Ten campaign with your friends, family and colleagues, and help raise awareness about the urgent need for more social and affordable housing.
References
- Australian Bureau of Statistics 2023, Estimating homelessness: Census, 2021, Australian Bureau of Statistics, viewed 8 June 2026, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/estimating-homelessness-census/latest-release.
- Anglicare Australia 2024, Rental Affordability Snapshot: Essential Workers Report, Anglicare Australia, viewed 8 June 2026, https://www.anglicare.asn.au/research-advocacy/rental-affordability/.
- Hall, S, Fildes, J, Liyanarachchi, D, Hicking, V, Plummer, J & Tiller, E 2020, Staying home: A Youth Survey report on young people’s experience of homelessness, Mission Australia, Sydney, viewed 8 June 2026, https://apo.org.au/node/307157.
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2025, Specialist homelessness services annual report 2024–25: Clients, services and outcomes, AIHW, Australian Government, viewed 8 June 2026, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/homelessness-services/specialist-homelessness-services-annual-report/contents/clients-services-and-outcomes.
- Johnson, G & Chamberlain, C 2008, ‘Homelessness and substance abuse: which comes first?’, Australian Social Work, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 342–356, doi:10.1080/03124070802428191.
- Australian Institute of Criminology 2008, Homeless people: their risk of victimisation, AICrime Reduction Matters, no. 66, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, viewed 8 June 2026, https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/crm/crm66
- Rowley, S, Brierty, R, Perugia, F, Rahman, H, Singh, R, Swapan, M & Taylor, L 2023, The new normal: changed patterns of dwelling demand and supply, AHURI Final Report no. 399, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Limited, Melbourne, viewed 8 June 2026, https://www.ahuri.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/2023-05/AHURI-Final-Report-399-The-new-normal-changed-patterns-of-dwelling-demand-and-supply.pdf, doi:10.18408/ahuri8129401.
