It is often the first impression as one arrives in Sydney: of people sleeping rough at the station or begging openly for money. Crossing Eddy Avenue into Belmore Park, one could get lost in the tent city of homeless people. 

But in the country, homelessness is more hidden. We don’t often see people sleeping rough in our Belmore Park.

This is not saying that we do not have a problem. Anglicare states 468 people have registered as homeless in Goulburn since last July.  It just seems here it is more ‘out of sight, out of mind’ here.

As Mission Australia chief executive Catherine Yeomans says (page 3): rough sleeping makes up only six per cent of the homelessness statistic. 

Ms Yeomans also advocates that one of the answers to this crisis is to provide more social housing. She has called on all levels of government to provide an additional 200,000 homes across the country. 

She also argues for more stability with homelessness services funding from the Federal Government. She states there needs to be more certainty with this funding so people know these services will be available in the longer term.

These are important considerations and if any level of government agrees to this then we applaud them, but the issue may be more complex than that.

To rely on the government alone to build such housing is a big ask and the reality is that there is a need to attract investors to construct such housing. These investors are also battling the increasing unaffordability of housing and general pressures in the economy that everyone is facing. 

Increasing homelessness is also symptomatic of the rising cost of living as well as the impact of those fleeing domestic violence. These are societal problems that also need addressing. 

Many locally were critical of the closure of two homeless hostels in Goulburn in 2014 in favour of the current model of care the State Government adopted, called Link to Home. 

Whether this is a better system to assist the homeless than to provide hostels is a political question. The reality is that in the case of one provider of those hostels in Goulburn (St Vinnies), they found it unaffordable to keep providing this hostel.

So, where to, then?