How to get emergency accommodation in Australia

Start with the intake line for the state or territory you are physically in, not the one where you normally live. These services are funded to assess and refer within their own borders, and a worker in Adelaide cannot book you a bed in Brisbane. The call is free from a landline and standard rates apply from a mobile. You do not need an address, a tenancy, a referral from anybody, or a Centrelink payment to ring. You do need to be reachable afterwards, which is why the first thing to say if your phone is nearly flat is that your phone is nearly flat.

New South Wales runs Link2home on 1800 152 152. The NSW Government describes it as available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year, and sets out the split that decides your night: from 9am to 10pm the service provides information, assessment and referral to homelessness support services, accommodation services and temporary accommodation; between 10pm and 9am it provides information and assessment only and will refer you to emergency services if required, but referral to accommodation is not possible in those hours. There is a separate veterans line on 1800 326 989.

Victoria's statewide entry point is Opening Doors on 1800 825 955. Victoria Legal Aid records it as available 24 hours a day, with a housing and support worker taking the call and referring you to help in your local area. Queensland's Homeless Hotline is 1800 474 753, published by the Queensland Government as a 24-hour, seven-day information and referral service for people who are experiencing homelessness or are housed but at risk of it, connecting callers to emergency accommodation, meals, showers, counselling and mental health support. If you need an interpreter the Queensland number is 1800 512 451, and Deaf callers or callers with a speech difficulty can use their preferred National Relay Service channel and ask for 13 74 68.

Western Australia is the jurisdiction where the clock matters most. Entrypoint Perth on 1800 124 684 is a free assessment and referral service funded by the Department of Communities, and the Western Australian Government publishes its hours as Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm and Saturday 9am to 5pm. It is the first point of contact for access to specialist homelessness services in the Perth metropolitan area. Outside those hours the state's published crisis contact is Crisis Care on 1800 199 008, which provides an after-hours response to concerns for a child's safety and wellbeing along with information and referrals for people in crisis.

South Australia runs Homeless Connect SA on 1800 003 308, which HomeSeeker SA — the South Australian Government's housing portal — lists as operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week and providing information and direct referrals into homelessness services. Tasmania's front door is Housing Connect on 1800 800 588, delivered statewide by Anglicare Tasmania with support from Homes Tasmania, available 24 hours a day for urgent accommodation with standard office hours of Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and offices in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport, Burnie and part-time in Smithton.

The two territories changed their arrangements recently, so old phone numbers circulate. In the Australian Capital Territory the central intake service has been operated by FIRST Canberra, a Salvation Army service, since 10 November 2025, on the number that used to belong to OneLink: 1800 176 468, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday and Sunday 12.30pm to 5pm, closed on public holidays, with an email front door at [email protected] and a shopfront at the Housing ACT Central Access Point in Belconnen. The Northern Territory now runs a territory-wide Homelessness Central Intake Service on 1800 920 333, with an online callback request as an alternative, listed on the ShelterMe directory the Territory funds.

If the line for your jurisdiction is shut, or you are put on hold with a dead battery, use Ask Izzy at askizzy.org.au. Infoxchange, the not-for-profit that runs it, describes it as free, anonymous and requiring no registration, searching more than 370,000 services across Australia for housing, meals, money help, family violence support and counselling — and, importantly for tonight, it works without credit or wi-fi on the Telstra and Vodafone mobile networks. If you or a child is in immediate physical danger, that is a triple zero call, not a housing call.

The call is an assessment, not a booking. The NSW Government describes what a Link2home caller receives as information about local services, an assessment to determine what kind of help is needed, and referral to appropriate specialist homelessness services, support services, temporary accommodation or other services. Every other jurisdiction runs the same three-part shape under different names. The worker is trying to decide two things: how urgent your situation is compared with the other people ringing tonight, and which of the funded services in your area has a vacancy that fits your household.

Expect to be asked where you slept last night and where you expect to sleep tonight, who is with you and their ages, whether anyone is at risk of violence, whether you have income and what kind, whether you receive a Centrelink payment and whether you have a customer reference number, whether anyone has a health condition or disability that affects what accommodation will work, and whether you have a pet or a car. None of that is a test you can fail. It is how the worker matches you to a service, because a women's refuge, a youth service, a family service and a single men's crisis service are separately funded and separately allocated.

Be specific rather than stoic. "I have nowhere to go" is a sentence the worker hears every few minutes; "I was locked out this afternoon, I have a nine-year-old with me, I have $14 and my phone is on 6 per cent" changes the triage. If there is violence involved, say so in the first minute — every jurisdiction routes family violence through a different and usually faster pathway, and in New South Wales it also removes the requirement to contribute to the cost of temporary accommodation.

What the service can arrange varies with the hour and the jurisdiction. In the best case it is a formal referral into a specialist homelessness service that has a bed, or a paid night in temporary accommodation such as a motel or a caravan park cabin. In Tasmania, Anglicare's Housing Connect can either pay for emergency accommodation directly or refer you to an emergency accommodation provider, with shelter placements prioritised on each person's needs and the needs of any children with them. In Queensland the Homeless Hotline refers, while the Housing Service Centres assess your situation in person and can arrange financial help, rental options and referrals to emergency accommodation.

What no service can do is guarantee a bed. The Victorian Auditor-General's audit of Victoria's homelessness response found that audited entities spent just 22 per cent of their flexible brokerage allocation, and that 85 per cent of the flexible brokerage funding they did spend went on short-term or emergency accommodation. It also recorded an audited entity reporting limited emergency accommodation options in its area. That is a 2018–19 picture of one program in one state, but it is the honest shape of the constraint everywhere: the intake line rations a supply it does not control.

Practical things that make the call work. Have photo identification and your Centrelink customer reference number in front of you if you have them, though you can be assessed without either. Ask for the name of the service you are being referred to, the address, and a reference number for your assessment, and write them down or send them to yourself in a message. Ask what happens if the referral falls through and whether you should ring back or the service will ring you. And charge the phone wherever you are standing — a library, a service station, a hospital waiting room — because every step after this one is a phone call.

Temporary accommodation is the government-funded motel room, cabin or short-stay unit that bridges the gap between tonight and a specialist homelessness service placement. New South Wales publishes the most detailed rules of any jurisdiction, and because the structure is broadly similar elsewhere it is worth reading even if you are not in New South Wales. Homes NSW describes it as short-term accommodation for people experiencing homelessness, offered by Homes NSW and by community housing providers, and states that most people stay for a few days and then extend if needed.

The extension is the part that catches people out, because it is conditional on what you do in the first three nights. Homes NSW requires a support plan for finding longer-term housing to be developed within three nights of starting temporary accommodation. It also requires you to keep in contact with your support providers, follow the accommodation's rules, tell Homes NSW if you have left and are not returning, and leave the accommodation in good condition. Those are not politeness requests; they are the criteria against which the next extension is assessed.

There is a cost, and it has to be paid before the extension is granted. Homes NSW states that you must contribute to the cost of the stay unless you are escaping domestic and family violence, and that the contribution must be made before extending. Budget for it out of whatever income or crisis payment arrives, and tell the worker straight away if you cannot, because a missed contribution is an administrative reason to end a placement that has nothing to do with your housing need.

Homes NSW also publishes the grounds on which an extension may be refused, and they are worth knowing in advance rather than discovering at a motel reception. Accommodation may not be extended where you did not follow the requirements in the past six months, where you damaged property, where you displayed antisocial behaviour, or where you refused an alternative reasonable offer of accommodation within the last twelve months. The last of those is the one that surprises people most: turning down an offer because it is far from work, school or family can close the door for a year.

The step that converts a motel room into a housing pathway is a form. Homes NSW requires you, within two weeks of starting temporary accommodation, to submit either a change of circumstances form if you already have a housing application, or an application for housing assistance if you do not. Do it in the first days rather than the last, because it is also the application that opens access to bond loans, private rental subsidies and the social housing waiting list. The Housing Response Centre is on 1800 422 322.

Elsewhere the mechanics differ but the logic does not. Queensland routes people through the Homeless Hotline for referral and through Housing Service Centres for in-person assessment, financial help, rental options and emergency accommodation referrals. Western Australia's Entrypoint Perth provides formal referrals to specialist homelessness services where you are eligible, having assessed you by phone or in person. Tasmania's Housing Connect can pay for emergency accommodation or send you to a provider. In every case the placement is a means to an end, and the end is a support worker and an application.

Crisis Payment is the Commonwealth's one-off payment for exactly this situation, and it has three features you need to understand before you ring. The Australian Law Reform Commission's review of the scheme records that it is worth one week of the person's eligible fortnightly social security payment, that it requires the person to be receiving or eligible for an income support payment and to be in severe financial hardship, and that the claim must be made within seven days of the extreme circumstance. That seven-day rule is the one that quietly disqualifies people who spend the first fortnight surviving and the third week doing paperwork.

The qualifying circumstances are defined categories rather than a general hardship test. The ALRC describes the family violence limb as covering both the person who leaves the home because of violence intending to establish a new residence and the person who stays in the home after the perpetrator leaves or is removed. The Commission's own criticism of the scheme is instructive for anyone arguing a marginal case: it identified the income support prerequisite, the requirement that violence have forced a departure from the home, and the compressed claim window as the three restrictions most limiting access. Rates, categories and time limits change, so confirm the current position with Services Australia rather than relying on a summary.

An advance payment is a different thing and is often quicker. It is a lump sum drawn from your own future income support payments and repaid out of them, and the National Debt Helpline describes it as available twice yearly. It is not extra money — it pulls forward money you were going to receive — which makes it the right tool for a bond, a removalist or a fortnight of motel contributions, and the wrong tool for an ongoing shortfall you have no plan to close.

Emergency relief is the non-Centrelink layer and it moves faster than either. The National Debt Helpline lists vouchers for food and transport, help with rent, utility bill payments and food parcels, delivered through organisations including the Salvation Army on 13 72 58 and St Vincent de Paul on 13 18 12. These are the services that put a supermarket voucher in your hand the same afternoon. They are also, in most towns, the organisations that actually run the crisis accommodation your intake line refers you to.

myGov's own homelessness money page points to three further levers that people rarely stack together: a No Interest Loan through Good Shepherd for essential goods and rental bond assistance, Centrepay to have rent and utilities deducted directly from a Centrelink payment before it reaches your account, and the Low Income Health Care Card for cheaper medicines and health costs. Centrepay in particular is worth setting up on the way into a new tenancy rather than after the first missed week, because it is the single cheapest form of arrears insurance available to a person on a low income.

Free financial counselling sits over the top of all of it. The National Debt Helpline is 1800 007 007, staffed on weekdays from 9.30am to 4.30pm with live chat from 9am to 8pm, and it is explicit that its counsellors do not provide crisis support or emergency relief themselves but will refer you to services that do. If the crisis has a debt behind it — a judgment, a car loan, a rent arrears figure that ended the tenancy — that call is the one that stops it repeating. For the night itself, Lifeline is 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is 1300 224 636, both around the clock.

If violence is the reason you have nowhere safe to sleep, there is a parallel set of services with their own numbers, their own refuge vacancies and their own financial concessions, and you can use them alongside the homelessness intake line rather than instead of it. 1800RESPECT is the national service on 1800 737 732, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by phone, text, online chat and video call, providing confidential information, counselling and support for people affected by domestic, family or sexual violence. It publishes safety planning material and an escape bag checklist and runs a service directory to find services in your area — which means you can ring before you leave, not only after.

The state lines are the ones that hold the refuge vacancies. New South Wales runs the Domestic Violence Line on 1800 656 463. Victoria's specialist family violence service is Safe Steps on 1800 015 188, available 24 hours a day. Queensland's DVConnect Womensline is 1800 811 811, staffed 24 hours, with the Mensline on 1800 600 636 from 9am to midnight. South Australia's Domestic Violence and Aboriginal Family Violence Gateway is 1300 782 200 or 1800 800 098. In Western Australia, Crisis Care on 1800 199 008 is the published after-hours crisis contact. Tasmania's Housing Connect includes support and rapid rehousing after family violence within its statewide service.

The financial rules bend in your favour and you should say so out loud. Homes NSW requires people in temporary accommodation to contribute to the cost of their stay unless they are escaping domestic and family violence. Queensland goes further on bonds: the Queensland Government states that where you are experiencing domestic, family or sexual violence, your Bond Loan application will be automatically approved, and it lists experiencing that violence as one of the qualifying conditions for a Rental Grant — a one-off, non-repayable payment of two weeks' rent. Neither concession is applied unless the service knows the circumstance.

Pets are one of the most common reasons people delay leaving, and there is a published answer. The NSW Department of Communities and Justice points people to the RSPCA's Community Domestic Violence program, which provides short-term and emergency housing and care for a pet while you find a safe place to stay, keeps your details and the pet's location confidential and secure, reunites you with the animal once you are safe, and offers financial assistance for transport and veterinary treatment. The NSW helpline is 02 9782 4408 on weekdays and 02 9770 7555 on weekends and public holidays, and the service covers regional New South Wales as well as Sydney. DCJ also suggests asking refuges directly about pet-friendly accommodation and updating the pet's council registration if you are the registered owner.

Legal help is free and it is faster than most people expect. Legal Aid NSW runs a Homeless Persons Legal Service on 02 8898 6545 giving free independent legal advice and representation aimed at preventing homelessness or resolving the legal problems behind it, and points to Women's Legal Service NSW on 1800 810 784. It also names Start Safely, the NSW rental subsidy for people leaving domestic violence to establish a safe, affordable tenancy. Victoria Legal Aid runs the equivalent homelessness legal work and names the Homelessness Advocacy Service for complaints about a government-funded homelessness service that has refused or mishandled your request.

One caution about evidence. You do not need a police report, an apprehended violence order or a medical certificate to ring an intake line, be assessed or be placed. Some payments and some tenancy provisions do require evidence, and the form it can take is broader than people assume, but none of that is a precondition for the phone call tonight. Ring first, gather documents later, and tell the worker what you do and do not have.

Young people have their own services and their own age thresholds, and the thresholds are lower than most people assume. Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 operates around the clock and the Queensland Government lists it as a service that can connect young people to homelessness services. In New South Wales, Homes NSW states that you generally need to be 18 to apply for housing assistance but that in some circumstances you can apply from 16, and that a Rentstart Bond Loan applicant must be at least 18 with 16 and 17-year-olds considered in some cases. Western Australia sets its Bond Assistance Loan age threshold at 16.

Leaving the care system is a recognised category in its own right. The Queensland Government states that a person under 25 who is in the child protection system and transitioning to living independently may be eligible for more streamlined access to social housing. New South Wales runs Rent Choice Youth for people aged 16 to 24 as one of its private rental assistance products, alongside Rent Choice Veterans for former Australian Defence Force members. If you are in either group, name it on the call — these products are not offered by default.

Release from prison is treated as its own housing transition, and the research explains why. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute's study of people exiting prison with complex support needs found that of approximately 65,000 releases from prison in 2019, one in seven resulted in a request for assistance from specialist homelessness services, and that one-third of prison entrants were previously homeless, with 28 per cent living in short-term or emergency accommodation beforehand. Its evaluation of allocating public housing to this group recorded a reduction of 8.9 per cent a year in police incidents and court appearances down 7.6 per cent a year, with justice costs per person down $4,996 initially and a further $2,040 a year after that. The practical implication is to start the housing conversation before the release date, through the prison's services and the intake line, rather than at the gate.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a national accommodation option that is easy to miss. myGov points to Aboriginal Hostels Limited, which provides low-cost temporary accommodation and meals for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, covering people without housing as well as job seekers, people travelling for medical treatment, students and people visiting family, with carers able to accompany clients. The contact number published is 02 6212 2001 and the hostel locations are listed at ahl.gov.au/hostels. Several jurisdictions also fund Aboriginal-controlled homelessness and family violence services that the intake line can refer you to directly — ask for one by name.

Veterans have a dedicated line in New South Wales. Link2home Veterans is 1800 326 989, published alongside the general Link2home number, and exists because the assessment and the services that follow are different. If you or a member of your household has served, say so during the assessment even if you have never engaged with a veterans' service before.

If you are sleeping in a car or have a pet with you, say that early rather than at the end. Both facts narrow the list of services with a suitable vacancy — a refuge with no parking or a shared facility with a no-animals rule is not a placement, it is a wasted referral and a second night lost. Ask Izzy lets you filter by circumstance and location, which is the fastest way to find the small number of services that are set up for a vehicle, a large dog or a household that will not be separated.

Every state runs an interest-free bond product, and they are the fastest route out of crisis accommodation for anyone whose problem is the upfront cost rather than the ongoing rent. In New South Wales the Rentstart Bond Loan is an interest-free loan of up to 100 per cent of the bond, repayable to Homes NSW. Homes NSW publishes the eligibility test: you must be eligible for social housing, an Australian citizen or permanent resident, hold less than $5,000 in cash assets, generally not own property, and the rent must not exceed 50 per cent of your household's total gross weekly income. Repayments are fortnightly over a 12 or 18-month plan, or 36 months in exceptional circumstances.

New South Wales also runs the broadest suite of surrounding products, and the intake worker will not list them all unless you ask. Homes NSW publishes Advance Rent for bond loan clients and people entering low-cost housing that requires a deposit; Tenancy Assistance for rent and water arrears in the private market; Bond Extra, which gives landlords and agents extra cover for arrears or damage and is aimed squarely at applicants an agent would otherwise reject; Rentstart Move for people leaving public housing; a Private Rental Brokerage Service for people with complex needs; a Private Rental Subsidy as medium-term support while waiting for social housing; and a Statement of Satisfactory Tenancy for current and former public housing tenants to use in private applications.

Queensland separates its products by what they are for, and the distinctions carry money. The Queensland Government publishes a Bond Loan of up to four weeks' rent, repayable with no interest or fees; a Bond Loan Plus covering the bond plus an amount equal to two weeks' rent, up to six weeks' rent in total; a Bridging Bond Loan of up to four weeks' rent for people who need a new bond before the old one is released; and a Rental Grant, a one-off payment of two weeks' rent paid directly to the property owner or manager that does not need to be repaid. Housing Services is contactable on 13 QGOV (13 74 68).

Western Australia publishes the most detailed figures, and they show how these schemes are calibrated. The Department of Communities offers bond assistance plus two weeks' rent in advance as an interest-free loan for private rentals, available from age 16, with gross weekly income limits running from $988 for a single person to $2,148 for a six-person household, asset limits between $5,000 and $10,000 depending on household size, a requirement that rent not exceed 60 per cent of gross income, and maximum bond amounts from $1,600 for a single person in the metropolitan area to $2,800 for larger households in remote areas. Repayments start at a minimum of $25 a fortnight. All of those figures are published amounts that change — check the current page before you plan around them.

Victoria pays its bond loan as a voucher rather than cash, which changes what you hand to an agent. Consumer Affairs Victoria explains that Homes Victoria bond loans, applied for through RentAssist, are available to people on low incomes who cannot otherwise pay a bond, and that an approved renter receives a voucher to give to the rental provider or agent, who lodges it with the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority before it expires. At the end of the tenancy the RTBA returns the bond to Homes Victoria if there is no valid claim, and where the rental provider does not claim, the renter owes Homes Victoria nothing. The voucher cannot be transferred to another person.

South Australia and Tasmania use different mechanisms again. HomeSeeker SA describes Housing SA's private rental assistance as help with bonds and rent for private rentals, residential parks, boarding houses, shelters, community housing and retirement villages, delivered through bond guarantees lodged with Consumer and Business Services rather than cash paid to the agent — an undertaking to pay legitimate claims at the end of the tenancy. Anglicare Tasmania's Housing Connect provides private rental support including help with bonds and rent arrears alongside its crisis work. Ask the intake worker for the product name in your jurisdiction and lodge the application the same week you are placed.

Lodge the social housing application on the first day even though it will not help tonight, because in most jurisdictions it is also the gateway to the products that will. Homes NSW sets out the eligibility test: you must be at least 18, though in some circumstances you can apply from 16, live in New South Wales or have an established need to live there, be an Australian citizen or permanent resident, have household income within the published limits, not own assets that could resolve your housing need, and be able to sustain a tenancy with or without support. Applications go through the Homes NSW online forms portal or by phone on 1800 422 322, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Assemble the evidence once and reuse it. Homes NSW requires documentation for every household member over 18 covering identity, New South Wales residency, citizenship or residency status, income and assets, property ownership, any debt to a social housing provider, ability to sustain a tenancy, and medical or disability information, and publishes an evidence requirements information sheet listing what it will accept. The medical and disability material is the part most often missed and the part that most often moves an application into a priority category, so ask your GP or specialist for a letter early rather than at review time.

Understand what the application actually buys. Homes NSW describes housing assistance as a single family of products spanning private rental assistance, private rental subsidies, temporary accommodation, emergency temporary accommodation, supported and crisis accommodation, affordable housing and social housing. That is why the two-week deadline to lodge an application after entering temporary accommodation matters so much: it is not bureaucracy for its own sake, it is the switch that makes you visible to the rest of the system.

Be realistic about the timeline, and about what the data says the system produces. The Victorian Auditor-General found that in 2018–19 homelessness services supported 112,919 Victorians who were homeless or at risk of homelessness, and that those services reported 72 per cent of their Victorian clients who were homeless when they first presented for help did not have access to stable housing at the end of their support period. Nobody publishes that figure to discourage you. It is here because it explains why the workers you speak to push private rental products, bond loans and subsidies so hard — for most households, the realistic exit from crisis accommodation is a private tenancy with government help attached, not a social housing allocation.

It also helps to know what homelessness legally and statistically includes, because people rule themselves out. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated 122,494 people were experiencing homelessness on Census night in 2021, and the breakdown is the striking part: 39.1 per cent were in severely crowded dwellings, 19.8 per cent in supported accommodation, 18.1 per cent in boarding houses, 13.5 per cent staying temporarily with other households, and 6.2 per cent in improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping rough. If you are on a friend's couch with nowhere to go next, you are in the largest part of that population, not outside it.

Finally, use the free specialist help rather than doing this alone. Legal Aid NSW's Homeless Persons Legal Service on 02 8898 6545 gives free independent legal advice aimed at preventing homelessness, and Victoria Legal Aid does the equivalent work and names the Homelessness Advocacy Service for complaints about a funded service. Every state and territory funds a tenancy advice service for the tenancy problems that caused the crisis, the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007 covers the debts behind it, and Ask Izzy will find the food, showers, storage and health services that fill the days between the phone call and the keys.