Nicole McGowan comes to Hobart City Mission's Safe Space during the day to relax and take a break from the constant stress of living on the streets.
She and her partner became homeless earlier this year after she completed a term of imprisonment, finding that the cost of rent left them without options.
This brought a range of challenges.
"You have to carry your stuff with you, so you can't accumulate too much because you've got to carry bags every day," Ms McGowan said.
"It's actually really expensive to be homeless. You can't just go and buy groceries that can do you for the week. You've got to buy takeaway food or food for that night."
Without somewhere to live, she found there was little to do during the day.
"The biggest thing when you're homeless is you've got nowhere to go. That's why you probably see people around the streets, we have nothing else to do," Ms McGowan said.
To ease this, she comes to Safe Space on Barrack Street to cook her food, chat with staff and access support services.
And at night, she goes to the overnight service in a converted church on Davey Street, where beds line the walls, along with rooms at the back of the building.
The service has provided 16,000 overnight stays for those in need in Hobart since opening in 2019.
Over that time, it has evolved from a pilot program at the Youth Arc precinct to a night shelter and a day space.
It now has capacity for 40 beds, usually seeing 30 people, but demand is always increasing.
A backup for when things go wrong
The University of Tasmania surveyed a range of Safe Space users and found all respondents had an overall positive experience with the service.
Another key finding was that, over time, rates of people being turned away due to poor behaviour decreased as people came to better understand the role of the service.
The service was described as providing "the crucial stepping stones on the path out of homelessness".
The report recommended Safe Space be expanded to other parts of the state's south, including the Huon Valley, Glenorchy and eastern shore.
To achieve this, it recommended funding be "increased substantially" noting there was significant unmet need beyond the city's centre.
City Mission housing services manager Ewan Higgs said it was vital to have the service as a backup for when things go wrong in people's lives.
"The community are very resourcing, so at times they will find places where they can couch surf or there'll be connections, friends, families that might open doors for a short period of time," he said.
"But ultimately, we find that people end up back here.
"That's where we see that fluctuation where we might be sitting at 35 one night, and maybe 25 the next night. But it's just being able to have the capacity so that when people do need us, we're able to accommodate."
Housing crunch hitting hard
Tasmania's housing affordability issues are showing little sign of easing, with 4,419 applications on the housing register in July, waiting an average of almost 90 weeks to be housed.
Hobart's private rental vacancy rate sits at 0.6 per cent, while it's 0.2 per cent in Burnie and 1 per cent in Launceston.
A rate of about 3 per cent is considered normal in a healthy rental market for tenants.
It means there are fewer properties available, and those that are available are often priced out of reach for people on lower incomes.
Mr Higgs said one of the biggest misconceptions he faces in the community is the belief that homeless is a choice that people make, rather than a result of a range of societal factors.
"It's never a choice. I think when you understand the complex traumas that people have experienced in life, the mental health issues that they have. If you take that into account, you can clearly see it's never a choice," he said.
Ms McGowan agreed, and said every day brings new challenges, including while staying at Safe Space.
"You struggle with different people, different personalities. It's hard. We're all homeless, our aim is to have a house at the end of the day, we don't want to be here," she said.
"We have our ups and downs, it's a struggle, it's not fun.
"The [Safe Space] staff are pretty exceptional."
