The Minns Labor Government has failed to get a grip on homelessness in New South Wales, with the latest Street Count showing a 42 per cent increase in the number of people sleeping rough across the state since 2023.
Shadow Minister for Homelessness, Natasha Maclaren-Jones, said the 2026 Street Count numbers show the most vulnerable in our community are being let down
\u201cAfter the NSW Liberals and Nationals called on the Government to stop hiding the homelessness figures, they have finally been released, and they reveal homelessness has increased by 42 per cent since the Minns Labor Government were elected,\u201d Mrs Maclaren-Jones said.
\u201cThe Minns Government\u2019s housing and homelessness crisis just keeps getting worse, with a record 2,308 people sleeping rough recorded this year. That is an additional 685 people since March 2023.\u201d
\u201cAs the housing and cost-of-living crisis continues to escalate, more people are experiencing homelessness for the first time.\u201d
\u201cRents are skyrocketing, homelessness services are at breaking point, and tens of thousands are trapped in a system that can\u2019t cope.\u201d
\u201cThis surge in rough sleeping comes as social housing waitlists have jumped 22 per cent to over 68,000 households, showing the system is failing people before they reach crisis point.\u201d
\u201cSpecialist Homelessness Services are stretched to the limit and are being asked to do more with less. NSW needs more housing, alongside proper wraparound support services,\u201d Mrs Maclaren-Jones said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mrs Maclaren-Jones is also calling on the Minister for Homelessness to broaden reporting to capture all forms of homelessness, including couch surfing and other forms of insecure housing that are not counted in the Street Count. The Minns Labor Government has failed to get a grip on homelessness in New South Wales, with the latest Street Count showing a 42 per cent increase in the number of people sleeping rough across the state since 2023. Shadow Minister for Homelessness, Natasha Maclaren-Jones, said the 2026 Street Count numbers show the most vulnerable in … Continue reading “Record rough sleeping numbers expose Minns Labor government failure”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39055,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39054\/revisions\/39055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cPeople are experiencing many forms of housing stress, from rough sleeping to couch surfing and overcrowded accommodation. To address homelessness effectively, we need accurate and timely data that reflects the true scale of the problem,\u201d Mrs Maclaren-Jones said.
The 2026 NSW Statewide Street Count Technical Paper is available here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"