Queanbeyan gets ACT homeless "overflow," St Benedict's Community Centre Karabar coordinator Elaine Lollback says

Father Michael Cockayne mans the kitchen, passing around sweet baked goods and offering hot drinks.

Fluttering around downstairs and upstairs to the office is "powerhouse" centre co-ordinator Elaine Lollback.

She works seven days a week but is only paid for two, she says.

While the homelessness service is funded to support 320 people, so far this financial year, it has helped more than 600, Ms Lollback said.

Funding for the service will end in June 30. They are hoping to secure an extra $100,000 or more from the NSW government.

As Canberra has grown in size, so has pressure on Queanbeyan services, Ms Lollback said.

"Queanbeyan was always the poorer cousin. It is now on par [with Canberra], because as I discovered when I moved ... it's in the centre of flipping Canberra. We are five minutes from Parliament House," she said.

"The problem from Canberra becoming a larger city, and being a capital city which draws people from around the country who end up being homeless, Queanbeyan is the first stop they come to when they can't get services in the ACT. "

The increase in Queanbeyan's median household income and rental prices from 2006 to 2021 is on par with Canberra and Australia as a whole, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.

Homelessness is increasing in NSW as rental prices and mortgages skyrockets, Homelessness NSW CEO Trina Jones said.

"We know that homelessness is increasing because services are telling us that they can keep up with demand," she said.

"Last year, almost 50 per cent of people who sought support from a specialist homelessness service [in NSW] had to be turned away."

Despite this, Ms Lollback said Queanbeyan still gets an "overflow" from the ACT. And people are rarely turned away from St Benedict's.

"We have had agencies, hospitals, police send people across the border to the [Queanbeyan homeless] sleepbus because there's nothing in Canberra," she said.

Those people then come to St Benedict's to access extra support services, Ms Lollback said.

"We need to start thinking of [Queanbeyan and Canberra as a] regional area," she said.

Residency rules in the ACT also push struggling people over the border, Ms Lollback said.

To be eligible for social housing assistance in the ACT, someone must have lived in the territory for six months.

However, in NSW, you must prove you live in the state to access social housing. There is no timeframe, and this residency rule can be waived for people living in border towns or fleeing domestic violence.

The wait time for general Queanbeyan social housing applicants was between five and ten years in June 2022.

The average wait time for priority housing in the ACT is less than one year (291 days), more than three years for standard priority and five years for general applicants.

Parliamentary sitting weeks and big events like Summernats puts more pressure on local homelessness services, Ms Lollback said.

Many homeless people are put into hotels for emergency short-term care, including people being discharged from hospital.

When people fly in, all the hotels book out.

"They book out here in Queanbeyan, they book out here in Canberra. We then have to move people to somewhere else in the state, so they can get a hotel room for a couple of days," Ms Lollback said.

However, "it cuts both ways." Sometimes St Benedict's will book a hotel in the ACT for Queanbeyan residents.

"As an NGO [we] can pay for that, the [NSW] state system can't," Ms Lollback said.

The ACT and NSW needed better service coordination, Ms Jones said.

"Cross-border co-ordination is one of the biggest complexities for services in areas like Queanbeyan, where they don't have good communication between ACT and the NSW Government, and people are falling between the gap," she said.

The federal government has promised to deliver a National Housing Plan, a 10-year strategy to address the housing crisis nationwide.

Ms Lollback is desperately trying to find a home for Sharyon Moulden. Ms Moulden lives on the street.

With temperatures rapidly cooling down, Ms Moulden recently told Ms Lollback she was concerned she would freeze during the night, and never wake up.

"Sharyon is why we do this," Ms Lollback said, describing her as resilient and good-natured.

She is on the priority waiting list for social housing in Queanbeyan.

Ms Moulden said: "We need funding to keep people safe and off the streets."

"[Bad things] have happened in Queanbeyan ... a lot happens behind those closed doors, when they're homeless, things can happen to ladies."

There is no single women's refuge in Queanbeyan, Ms Lollback said.

There is crisis accommodation for people fleeing domestic violence, the NSW government website says.

St Benedict's will happily care for people long-term: the services don't stop because someone has a house.

MORE COST OF LIVING:

Allan Jones, who is on the age pension after retiring in 2007, said Ms Lollback was the reason he and his wife weren't living on the street.

With two teenage children, Mr Jones and his wife were living in a small local caravan until Ms Lollback intervened and secured them a three-bedroom house.

The now adult children are both attending university - one in Newcastle, and the other at the Australian National University, Mr Jones said.

And he still comes to the centre every morning it is open, for a meal and a chat.

NSW Minister for Housing and Homelessness Rose Jackson did not respond to a request to comment.

We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.