Lincoln Curtis says if you ask him a simple question, you get a simple answer.<\/p>\n
Why is he homeless? There aren\u2019t enough houses, he says. What does he need? A job. What is he doing about these things? Waiting for one, looking for the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just got on the social housing waitlist two months ago,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ve told me I will have to wait five to seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old has worked the mines, then carnivals, travelling around. Now he\u2019s in Wagga Wagga looking for a home and a way to pay for it.<\/p>\n
Lincoln is standing with his friend John Bryce in one of the regional city\u2019s biggest homeless encampments. Last Saturday, a newborn baby \u2013 a twin \u2013 died here<\/a>, after their mother gave birth in a tent by the river. She had been living there for months, taking fresh water from the apartment block next-door to drink and bathe, walking 10 minutes down the river to go to the toilet.<\/p>\n Lincoln didn\u2019t know the woman who lost her baby \u2013 members of the camps stick to their own crews \u2013 and he doesn\u2019t really want to talk about her.<\/p>\n But he whispered a few words quickly before he looked away.<\/p>\n \u201cIf she had had a house, she would have had more support,\u201d he says. \u201cApparently, she didn\u2019t even know she had twins coming.\u201d<\/p>\n Lincoln Curtis is now staying in temporary accommodation, having given up his dog to a family. Photograph: Sean Davey\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The family in the tent had been known to the department of housing for years, though Homes NSW won\u2019t say if they ever had temporary or fixed accommodation. Tucked along riverbeds, in free campsites, across parks, in tents and caravans, are Australians living through the crunch of the housing crisis.<\/p>\n They\u2019re single mothers with five kids, they\u2019re aged care nurses who can\u2019t afford a private rental, cleaners in the same position. Some, the grey nomads, don\u2019t want a home, they see themselves as travellers, but the majority, like Lincoln, do and can\u2019t get one.<\/p>\n Lincoln gave up his dog, to a family with a young girl, to get a room at St Vincent de Paul\u2019s temporary accommodation. But John won\u2019t \u2013 and because of that, he\u2019s stuck. He\u2019s been on the waiting list for seven years.<\/p>\n John Bryce: \u2018Where else am I supposed to go?\u2019 Photograph: Sean Davey\/The Guardian<\/p>\n John has been living in the encampment at Wilks Park for more than a year. Before that, he was in a swag on the river. The council have tried to evict him several times for overstaying the 24-day camping period, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere else am I supposed to go?\u201d John says.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, I can\u2019t get anywhere to live, the department of housing walked through here. I\u2019ve got two big dogs. They\u2019re not going to give me somewhere, she\u2019s looking at me going, ah, yep, no way.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past five years, the community has watched as the encampments have ballooned. But Wagga is not unique.<\/p>\n Just not enough homes<\/p>\n The data on rough sleeping in regional areas shows it is increasing, in higher per-capita rates than the cities, says Michael Fotheringham from the Australian Housing<\/a> and Urban Research Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at sort of the geography of homelessness in Australia, we see more people are homeless in our capital cities than in regional areas in total,\u201d he says. \u201cBut per capita in remote and regional areas the rate is higher.\u201d<\/p>\n In urban areas, the trigger for homelessness is often eviction, while regional Australia just does not have enough housing, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe nature of homelessness is different in regional or rural areas,\u201d Fotheringham says. \u201cOvercrowding plays a big part, most strikingly in the Northern Territory. And the proportion of people living in camps and sleeping rough is a really big factor too.\u201d<\/p>\n On top of this, services are struggling. Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show services around New South Wales<\/a> served 67,824 clients in the 2024-25 financial year, with the number of people being turned away rising to 59 a day on average, up from 57 last year. Only 36% of clients needing short-term or emergency housing were actually provided with it.<\/p>\n James Clark (left) speaks with Damien Adams (right) at Edel Quinn support services in Wagga Wagga. Photograph: Sean Davey\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Damien Adams is the manager of Edel Quinn \u2013 one of the two emergency accommodation shelters in Wagga run by St Vincent de Paul.<\/p>\n He reels off the stats \u2013 they have 16 rooms (always full), send about 100 meals to encampments each week, helped 234 people in the last financial year, and support 32 rough sleepers roughly each week. The demand, he says, is unrelenting.<\/p>\n \u201cEach week we will support the clients to go and apply for places, rentals and shared accommodations, anything we can afford to do, caravan parks,\u201d Adams says.<\/p>\n With only 16 beds, the people staying in the temporary accommodation, like Lincoln, have to keep their spots by applying for places. This can be hard, Adams says \u2013 it\u2019s not easy jumping through the hoops, filling out forms, getting to inspections on time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a historical thing. They probably had trouble in the past and now have no trust in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n Priced out<\/p>\n The biggest challenge though is not service burnout, Adams says, but rents.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people we work with are on government payments, so they\u2019re on the jobseeker or on the disability support pension, so $736 at the lowest point. Now the lowest rent in Wagga today is $380 a week. So that prices them out of the market completely.\u201d<\/p>\n