4 August 2025
As Homelessness Week 2025 (4-10 Aug) begins, the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) is calling on all levels of government to ensure that people seeking asylum are not left behind in national efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness.
This must include access to a basic safety net including income support, affordable housing, Medicare, and the right to work and study so that people can live in dignity while they wait for a decision on their refugee protection application.
Right now, thousands of people seeking safety in Australia are locked out of essential services due to restrictive visa conditions. Many are denied work rights and access to healthcare, pushing them into extreme poverty, unstable housing and severe mental health challenges due to the ongoing stress of prolonged visa uncertainty.
One of the few supports available – the Status Resolution Support Services (SRSS) program, a vital safety net for people seeking asylum and experiencing hardship – is now largely inaccessible due to the strict eligibility criteria. Despite its original intent to provide short term support for basic needs, the limited access and payments are hardly enough to survive on, seeing more people forced into destitution.
In the City of Sydney alone, nearly 20 per cent of people sleeping rough are non-residents on uncertain visas, including people seeking asylum. Across the country, frontline services are seeing increasing numbers of people in crisis, including women fleeing violence and people with complex mental health needs.
RCOA Deputy CEO Adama Kamara says this growing crisis is not due to a lack of motivation or capability among people seeking asylum, but the result of an exclusionary system.
“People seeking asylum have fled danger and come to Australia in search of protection, and instead are being pushed to the edges of our communities. Many arrive healthy and ready to contribute, but the current system strips them of the right to work and leaves them in limbo for years, which takes a devastating toll on their health and wellbeing.”
One such example is Saad, who has sought asylum in Australia and has been waiting for five years for a decision on his case. After a workplace injury and eviction, he was discharged from hospital into homelessness and has since been suffering from ongoing mental health issues. Although he receives temporary assistance from a charity, that support is expected to end soon. Without eligibility for SRSS, Saad remains at high risk of homelessness with no stable pathway forward.
Another group in urgent need of attention are the thousands of people affected by the Fast Track process, a failed policy that created a two-tier system for assessing refugee claims. While the Government has partially abolished Fast Track, a cohort of over 7,500 people remain stuck in limbo with no pathway to permanency despite having lived in Australia for more than a decade.
RCOA Policy Advisor Dr Shaheen Whyte says that temporary fixes are not enough.
“This is not just about emergency shelter. It’s about decades of inaction that have left thousands of people in limbo, unable to rebuild their lives. We have an opportunity now to provide real safety, not just temporary fixes but lasting solutions. Extending the SRSS eligibility, restoring work rights and access to healthcare for people in crisis is long overdue, along with providing permanency for those affected by Fast Track.”
Currently, it is charities and frontline asylum services that are left to fill the gap. They provide food, emergency accommodation, rent assistance, transport and healthcare, but with little or no government funding. These services are stretched beyond capacity and rely heavily on donations and community goodwill.
Asylum Seeker Centre’s Head of Services, Kylie Mackie, says rising homelessness among people seeking asylum is deeply concerning.
“As a frontline asylum agency, we are overwhelmed by the number of people who present to us as homeless from week to week. Around half of the people we provided targeted one-on-one casework support to in the last financial year were either homeless or at risk of homelessness. It is reaching a crisis point.
“People seeking asylum are locked out of mainstream social services and until the Government ensures that a proper safety net is in place to stop them from falling into destitution, this homelessness crisis will only grow.”
As Homelessness Week 2025 focuses national attention on housing insecurity, the Refugee Council of Australia urges governments to act on the evidence and ensure no one is left behind because of their visa status.
