ONLY six people were spotted sleeping rough on Newcastle's streets in the Department of Community and Justice's annual count earlier this year.
With all due respect, that number appears exceedingly low for a local government area that is increasingly struggling to find affordable housing, social housing or even rental housing for those who need one of the basic tenets of modern life.
Experts recommend that the survey, a count on a single night in February, be taken with a grain of salt. Organisations, including Soul Hub, see vulnerable people coming through their doors in growing volumes.
That is not to criticise the work of the survey, which admirably puts the issue of homelessness back in front of those lucky enough to have avoided it.
It also does not capture perhaps the largest cohort of those without homes: those who can stay with a friend, or a loved one, for a few nights here and there to avoid the hard lifestyle most of us would envisage when discussing homelessness.
Sadly, the reality is that greater weight will come to bear on the support structures defending those in need before too long.
There has been little indication that the Reserve Bank of Australia's appetite for interest rate rises as a fix for inflation is waning, leaving households to absorb that cost alongside the many others that are rising.
By next week, the annual Hunter Water bill will be higher as well. It sometimes feels that the list could be endless.
While pressure is mounting, the protective bubble some have shrouded themselves in also has a looming expiry date. The insulation of fixed-rate mortgages is one that cannot last much longer, and it will deliver a sharp pain for the many home owners who, until now, have been protected.
How well these pressures are absorbed will vary, but any further fiscal pain runs the risk of sending at least some of those in its crucible to the wall.
While those are unlikely to help alleviate homelessness rates, the focus must remain on those who need help in the here and now. The invisible homeless surfing couches at least have somewhere warm to sleep, albeit in a situation rife with anxiety and daily uncertainty.
Whether those in need are immediately evident or concealed, the rate of homelessness is a measure of yesterday's policies. The stark nature of how systems designed to prevent people slipping through the cracks have failed must inform how they are rebuilt, overhauled and improved to ensure that those beginning to feel the pain are protected in the future.
As Homelessness NSW chief executive Trina Jones says, this should not happen in a nation as wealthy as Australia. Those who leave Soul Hub "smashed" are perhaps a better measure of the scale of need than an observational tally. The number is, in some ways, less relevant than making sure the homeless and their plight count.
