“Beyond seven days, [the service] was unable to assist with further housing assistance. They provided counselling services which I engaged in. I was asked if I was suicidal and at the time yes I was. Then the counsellor let me know almost immediately that because it’s likely I’m moving outside of the district [to get more housing assistance] I won’t be able to keep accessing her services because of the way the district funding works. She just politely wished me all the best.” [Resident in emergency accommodation] People also raised concerns about other flow-on impacts of long-term housing insecurity, such as job losses and compounding financial crisis. In some instances, people could not sustain employment when the only emergency housing available was some distance away. In other instances, applying for employment was more difficult when people experienced discrimination due to having no fixed housing. Some people also struggled to access private rentals because they had no housing credit history or references. 36 Human Rights Commission A particular long-term issue we heard from many people was the impossibility of transitioning out of the emergency housing system and into longterm housing solutions. People told us this was because of a combination of unaffordability in the private rental market, and a lack of supply in public housing. Many housing providers and advocates cited the housing crisis as a main cause of the sharp rise in the number of people in need of housing, and in particular the substantial rent increases between 2017 and the present. Providers told us they had previously supported people who experienced long-term and chronic homelessness, often because of historical trauma and/or complex unmet needs, but since 2017 were increasingly seeing an entirely new cohort of individuals and families experiencing housing distress for the first time. In many instances, the trigger was a rent increase or a landlord selling their house, leaving them with nowhere to go. We heard that as rents went up, people on the lowest incomes (particularly beneficiaries) were squeezed out of the private rental market.