• In short: Demand for homelessness support in regional Victoria is beginning to exceed resources
• What’s next? The Council to Homeless Person is calling on state and federal governments to better fund support services

The trick to squatting is being quiet, tidy and friendly, former fisherman and Geelong local Les said.

If you’re not causing any issues, the owners might let you stay on for a little while when they eventually discover you.

“Where I am now, I’ve been there probably 14 months,” Les said.

“The owners know I’m there, I’m right for a little bit longer.”

The 57-year-old has experienced different forms of homelessness for about a decade, and has spent the past five or so years squatting in abandoned and unused properties around Geelong’s CBD and inner suburbs.

For much of the pandemic, he lived in a shed in the backyard of a vacant inner-city property.

When the owners decided to knock it down to build townhouses, Les had to pack his gear into a trolley and head to a new spot — one which had caught his eye months earlier.

He’s still there now, living in the crawl space of an unused building on the cusp of the CBD.

Les isn’t tall, so he only occasionally hits his head on the thick timber beams holding up the floorboards, while the brick foundation pillars evenly scattered through the space provide shelving for his belongings.

The electricity is still connected too, so a single light bulb throws a warm glow across his bed and gear spread in a corner.

He said it’s hard not to notice more and more people living on Geelong’s streets and seeking help at the various homelessness services he frequents, such as The Outpost and the Lazarus Community Centre.

“Seems to be more new faces turning up,” Les said.

“And then there’s people like me — you don’t really see them sleeping on the street, they’ve found themselves a good campsite and hide themselves away for the night.”

More than 1,500 people were counted as experiencing homelessness in Geelong on census night in 2021, a number which has doubled in the four years since the previous census, putting strain on local support organisations.

The Outpost and Lazarus have both seen up to a 60 per cent increase in demand for food and housing assistance in the past 12 months.

“That was including not just rough sleepers, but also people sleeping in cars, couch surfing and attempting to access emergency accommodation,” Jade Hamilton, Lazarus Community Centre’s general manager said. 

“People don’t understand that homelessness does mean all of that — it’s not just people that we see out on the street, it’s other people experiencing it that we don’t see. It’s those hidden numbers.”

Regional Victorian homelessness growing three times as quickly

While the majority of homelessness remains concentrated within metropolitan Melbourne, the latest government data shows regional homelessness is growing at three times the pace.

The total number of homeless people in regional local government areas jumped by 52 per cent between the 2016 and 2021 census, while metropolitan homelessness rose by 17 per cent.

LGAs with biggest percentage increases in homeless persons

In Ballarat, where the number of homeless people jumped 55 per cent according to the census, community service provider Uniting Victoria reported 1,450 new people reporting to its entry point seeking housing support in the last financial year, on top of its existing client base.

In the Wimmera, which takes in Horsham, 772 new clients presented to the organisation’s local entry point.

Uniting Victoria estimates over the past two financial years it’s been forced to turn away more than 3,500 people from those two services alone due to a lack of capacity on the day.

“Particularly in entry points, we just don’t have enough staff to meet the demand,” Adam Liversage, Uniting Ballarat’s senior manager for homelessness said.

“And even the ones they do get to, and the ones they do assess, that doesn’t mean there’s an option for them either.

“We know our hotels and motels in regional Victoria are always full-up, particularly in high tourism destinations.

“It really bottlenecks our options for crisis accommodation.”

LGAs with the highest overall homeless numbers