A deeply entrenched housing crisis

Anglicare Tasmania’s latest snapshot of the Housing Connect Front Door service highlights how deeply entrenched Tasmania’s housing crisis has become since the statewide service was introduced two years ago.

Released today (17 September 2026), the report covers the June quarter as well as a review of the period 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026. It showed the social housing register had grown 9.5% over 12 months, to 5,655 individuals and families. Over the year, staff responded to 52,273 enquiries, up 7% from the previous year. There were 331 periods of support provided to children and young people under the age of 18 who presented to the Housing Connect Front Door alone. On average, the Front Door was able to meet only 15% of people’s needs for short-, medium- and long-term housing.

Coordinator of Anglicare’s Social Action and Research Centre Ginny Toombs said the report showed that over the year, about half of all support periods involved people who had been homeless within the last 12 months.

“This trend is of particular concern to us,” she said. “Homelessness includes when people sleep rough, in cars, in improvised buildings or couch surf for extended periods in overcrowded conditions. This has long term, detrimental effects on people’s mental health and children’s learning outcomes.”

Ms Toombs said that while recent government announcements on new housing projects including housing for women escaping domestic and family violence were welcome, they were not sufficient to meet the scale of need.

There needs to be a significant increase in the construction of new social and affordable homes. This includes supported accommodation that can cater for people with complex needs (including mental health challenges or those escaping domestic and family violence) and young people.

Government must do whatever it can to push the rental vacancy rate up to a healthy 3% so that private rentals become more available and affordable across the state. Rents grew more than three times faster than wages in the 12-month period.

Ms Toombs also said Anglicare Tasmania looked forward to the review of short-stay accommodation announced last week.

“This will provide a valuable opportunity to more fully understand the impact that the short-stay sector has on the housing market,” she said.

Background

The Housing Connect Front Door is the entry point for housing assistance. It is where people can get information about housing options and other supports. Anglicare delivers this service from our offices in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport and Burnie.

The Housing Connect Front Door service is funded by Homes Tasmania. Homes Tasmania manages the housing register.