{"id":651904,"date":"2026-05-05T21:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T21:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/651904\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T21:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T21:33:16","slug":"homelessness-body-says-devastating-baby-death-in-wagga-wagga-exposes-broken-housing-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/651904\/","title":{"rendered":"Homelessness body says devastating baby death in Wagga Wagga exposes ‘broken housing system’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The death of a baby in a makeshift homeless camp in regional New South Wales<\/a> is being mourned as a devastating and unacceptable tragedy by Australia’s peak homelessness<\/a> body.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old woman and surviving infant were taken to hospital.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The number of people camping by the river have been increasing in Wagga Wagga amid low rental vacancies and public housing “renewal”. (Richard Foley)<\/p>\n

“The uncomfortable truth is that tragedies like this don’t come out of nowhere,” Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin said.<\/p>\n

“They are the result of a housing system that has broken to the point that there is no safe housing or adequate support available, even for a mother with a newborn baby.”<\/p>\n

NSW Housing and Homelessness Minister Rose Jackson yesterday said there would be a full investigation into the family’s circumstances but said Homes NSW had been in contact with the family over some years.<\/p>\n

According to the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, more than 700 people were waiting for social housing in Wagga Wagga as of June 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

Of those, 102 were listed as priority applicants.\ufeff<\/p>\n

The expected wait time for social housing \ufeffin the city is between five to 10 years, for all types of dwellings.<\/p>\n

\"WaggaThe Murrumbidgee River in Wagga Wagga. (Getty Images\/iStockphoto)<\/p>\n

Across the state, there are more than 68,000 households on the social housing waiting list.<\/p>\n

“It is completely unacceptable a family that has welcomed a new baby cannot immediately access a home, but rentals are unaffordable and social housing is unavailable,” Colvin said.<\/p>\n

“People in desperate need miss out every day because there is not enough social housing or homelessness support.”<\/p>\n

Short-term and crisis accommodation services are similarly unable to cope with demand, Colvin said.<\/p>\n

“This has been building for years,” she said.<\/p>\n

“What it calls for now is not just grief, but resolve.<\/p>\n

“Resolve to make sure families have somewhere safe to go before things reach this point, and that when people need help, they can get it early, not only once everything has already been lost.”<\/p>\n

Without change, she said there would likely be more “heartbreaking, avoidable” tragedies.\ufeff<\/p>\n

The latest Specialist Homelessness Services annual report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found one in three \ufeffindividuals or families who reach out needing short-term or emergency accommodation do not get their needs met.<\/p>\n

This means they’re neither provided with accommodation nor referred on to other services.\ufeff<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of a baby in a makeshift homeless camp in regional New South Wales is being mourned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-651904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}