Wagga man William Thierry beats homelessness - and the odds - in city's ongoing housing battle

"Being homeless is scary - it can be dangerous," he said.

"Late a night, I didn't go to sleep until 3 in the morning ... I'd wake up thinking about not just when and where I'm going to eat, but when and where I'm going to get a house."

Mr Thierry is one of hundreds of Wagga residents who found themselves without a safe place to sleep every night in the wake of an onslaught of socio-economic stressors.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent economic responses resulted in tens of thousands of Australian "tree-changers" moving to regional centres like Wagga. This drove up demand, and ultimately prices for housing.

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Wagga's floods last year saw elements of the homeless community gather together at Wilks Park for safety from the rising waters.

While the Wilks Park shanty town no longer stands, a recent report by Homelessness NSW suggests the problem has more than doubled since.

Acting chief executive of Homelessness NSW Amy Haines said housing stress and homelessness have been increasing across the state, as the rising cost of living forces people to choose between housing and food.

"With spiralling rents, low vacancy rates and the rising cost of living, more people are being pushed into homelessness. At the same time, the supply of social housing is historically low and shrinking," she said.

"What we actually need is sustained and urgent investment in social housing to bring it up to 10 per cent of all homes by the year 2050.

"For people to live their best lives and contribute to their communities, we all need a secure stable home. That's what social housing is really about - making sure everyone can play a role in creating community."

Despite Wagga's ever-lengthening social housing wait list, Mr Thierry has managed to secure a place to live in community housing.

Although the current wait time for social housing in Wagga is estimated at two to five years, Mr Thierry made it up the list in just three months as a priority case.

He said while he knows it's hard to keep your spirits up when you have nowhere to live, the only way to get anywhere is to be relentless.

"I was calling them forever - every day for god knows how many months," he said.

"It's really hard to communicate with DCJ [Department of Communities and Justice], but I know it's not really their fault.

"There's a lack of funding for the City of Wagga Wagga, and everyone knows there's a lack of housing. All you can do really is hound them every single day - don't stop."

Mr Thierry doesn't question how, or why he became homeless, but wonders why homelessness seems to be a barrier to securing housing itself.

"Things happen when it comes to ice ... it destroys the community," he said.

"I have diagnosed depression and anxiety too - it sucks."

The elephant in the room for him, and many other homeless people are the additional challenges that mental health issues and substance abuse create for people living rough.

Studies by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show more than 30 per cent of people experiencing homelessness suffer from a mental illness, and homelessness in and of itself is often a cause of those issues.

The most common afflictions are depression, anxiety, and PTSD - all of which make it difficult for people to interact with frontline service providers in the way they are expected to.

James Ingram-Douglas works with Wellways Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative - a program designed to help people with mental illnesses find appropriate housing.

"When you think about basic human needs - food, shelter, water - if you don't have shelter, everything else is going to deteriorate," he said.

"Often people will try to fill their unmet needs with drugs and alcohol, which can lead to other health issues.

"Plus being isolated and lonely with no supports ... It's honestly massive, which is only just now starting to be addressed."

Mr Ingram-Douglas said there are small things we can do for our homeless residents. As a group that often feel ignored by the rest of society, a little humanity can go a long way.

"They're often very polite, no matter what state they're in," he said.

"We're all human beings, they just live in a different set of circumstances than we're used to.

"I can appreciate that it makes people uncomfortable to have homeless people in the middle of town, but we need them in full view - otherwise nothing's going to get done."

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