When June Mills lays her tarp on the ground for bed each night, she stares up at the night sky to find stars.
"The first thing I do when I lay down is look up at the sky, and if I see stars, I say, 'Thank God', because I know it's not going to rain," she said.
Before dusk each night, the celebrated Darwin artist scours the city's streets in her van, looking for a safe place to park and call it a night.
"It's very hard to organise your life, to find a safe place, and every night is different."
Mills was thrust into homelessness after she was evicted from public housing in the city's north.
She is banned from putting her name down for public housing for two years, and once she does apply, faces an eight to 10-year wait to get a unit in Darwin.
With the city's soaring rental market also out of reach, she feels stuck.
"I can't solve this, I don't know," Mills said.
"The best I can do is to have a feed, try and have a sleep and maintain my body and clothes and stuff clean."
'Horror story' for stage star
A performer with the Mills Sisters, June Mills is one of the original stars of the stage in the Northern Territory and paved the way for Aboriginal artists.
She has used her platform in the community to advocate for Aboriginal people, and for years, has spoken out about the dire state of homelessness in the Northern Territory.
But after years of having no fixed address, her voice has grown louder, and she is calling out what she is seeing on the street.
"It's a horror story; people are hungry; people are cold, they're getting wet; there's nowhere to get a dry bed."
Statistics released from the last Census show 13,104 people are homeless in the Northern Territory — the highest rate of any jurisdiction in the country and almost 12 times the national average.
Indigenous people make up 87 per cent of the Northern Territory's homeless population. Just over half are women, and overcrowded housing remains the biggest driver.
"The situation with homelessness in the Northern Territory is dire," said NT Shelter CEO Peter McMillan.
"Just to give you an indication, New Zealand is the country with the highest rate of homelessness in the entire OECD, with 1 per cent of its population experiencing homelessness.
"While in the Northern Territory, we have just over 5 per cent of our population who are homeless; just under 12 times the national rate of homelessness in Australia; it really underscores just how poor we perform in terms of homelessness up here."
Explosion of new faces on the street
Larrakia Nation's Night Patrol program is at the coalface of homelessness and has seen an explosion of new faces coming to town from remote communities.
Its CEO Michael Rotumah said the number of people the organisation was helping each night was "unprecedented" and was leading to tension on the street.
"We're experiencing a lot of anti-social behaviour, and that's leading to criminal behaviour, and it's directly putting a lot of our staff at risk and in danger of some of these people who are just being desperate now," he said.
"There are weapons being confiscated; there are many fights happening through the night, so there are those challenges that our staff are faced with on a daily and nightly basis."
Finding a bed for people and keeping them safe has never been harder for the night patrol service, especially when the city's only 40-bed sobering-up shelter – or "Spin Dry" as it's known on the street — fills up.
"We've got limited resources on where to take the clients afterwards," Larrakia Nation's program support coordinator Shaynai Daby said.
"The options are the hospital, the police watch house or to family if they're welcome there."
Darwin experiencing 'refugee crisis' from remote communities
Mills is alarmed by the influx of new faces on the streets of Darwin and says people are desperate.
"I've seen so many grandmothers coming in with the grandchildren to escape whatever is going on out at Wadeye, and they're sleeping in the parks with their grandchildren, trying to look after the children on the streets of Darwin; it's pathetic," she said.
"I would go so far as to say that we have a refugee crisis here in Australia within our people."
Mary Malbiynga from East Arnhem Land is one of Darwin's many rough sleepers who do not want to return to their community.
She said she was woken by council rangers in the seaside suburb of Fannie Bay and fined $162 for sleeping in a public place.
The 48-year-old disability pensioner is on the waitlist for public housing, and the fine hit a nerve.
"I'm trying to get one flat. I've been doing that for many years, to get one flat here in Darwin, but [I'm] still waiting," Ms Malbiynga said.
'Dud deal' on homelessness funding
Despite having the greatest need in the nation, the Northern Territory receives the least amount of direct Commonwealth funding for homelessness in the country because of its small population.
Under the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA), the Northern Territory receives $20.8 million in Commonwealth funding or just 1.3 per cent of the national pool of money.
"The Northern Territory has been receiving a very dud deal under Commonwealth funding for homelessness," Mr McMillan said.
The Northern Territory government spends $31 million in grant funding for housing and homelessness services, including supported accommodation and drop-in centres.
Northern Territory Housing Minister Selena Uibo said more could be achieved if the Territory was funded based on its need.
"We're never going to get ahead in the Northern Territory if we continue to be population based-funded; our territory context is unique," Ms Uibo said.
In a statement, federal Housing Minister Julie Collins said the Albanese government had delivered "significant new funding for housing and homelessness services in the Northern Territory".
The most recent census results show homelessness in the Northern Territory has fallen by 4.5 per cent since 2016.
Young people in the firing line
In a jurisdiction which also has the highest youth homeless rate in the nation, children are being hit especially hard.
At Darwin's only youth refuge run by YWCA Australia, there has been a doubling of young people turned away over the last three years.
"The need is just so desperate; I'm not even sure how I could paint the picture, to be honest, it's just so overwhelming," YWCA Australia Regional Manager Rachael Uebergang said.
Sixteen-year-old Josie* is one of the lucky ones to get a room at the eight-bed youth refuge, and she is anxious about her future.
"I worry about finding somewhere affordable to stay or just finding a place in general," she said.
The same worry weighs heavy on June Mills's mind as well, who fears her talent and contribution to the Northern Territory will go wasted on the street.
"As a Larrakia elder, I should be in a place where I can continue to be a service to the community … I should be passing on my legacy and heritage to my grandchildren and others.
"I think it's such a terrible waste of me as an elder, a resource and a community person."
*Not her real name.
