At least one person has died every month before finally being offered public housing in New South Wales, new data has revealed.
Data provided to Guardian Australia after a freedom of information request shows that between April 2019 and March this year, 77 people who had already died were offered housing. This included 12 people in 2020 and 2021, 17 in 2022 and 11 in 2023.
So far this year homes have been offered to two people who died while on the public housing waiting list.
The real number of people who have died while on the waiting list will be higher because in some cases Homes NSW was told of a person’s death before the offer was made.
According to the data, a further 114 people had applications withdrawn between April 2019 and March this year because they were incarcerated. Across 2021 and 2022 prisoner withdrawals averaged about once a fortnight, with 25 and 26 people in jail offered a public home.
Advocates said people were dying while waiting for housing, with statistics from Homelessness NSW showing median wait time for social housing rose to five and a half years (66.5 months) in northern NSW in the first three months of the year.
In the Illawarra it’s nearly four years (45.4 months). In Sydney the median wait time exceeded three years (36.5 months).
As of the end of March there were 57,401 households on the waitlist across NSW, including 8,657 on the priority waitlist.
The Tenants Union of NSW’s chief executive, Leo Patterson Ross, said it was “not surprising” the data showed “people are dying while waiting for a home”.
“We know that a lot of people are waiting for a very long time for public housing, not even a few years, but even decades,” he said. “People shouldn’t be dying while waiting for an affordable home.”
He said when people did not have safe, healthy, affordable housing, poverty led some to break the law to survive – which could account for the higher rates of offers to people in prison.
If a person rejects housing because they were incarcerated, they would have to start the application process when they were released, he said.
“That also increases the likelihood that a person is going to fall back into similar situations because they’re not coming out with the support and – importantly – a safe shelter at a time when they are really in great need of it.”
The data also showed between April 2019 and March this year 2,222 people rejected what the department deemed as “reasonable properties”, with the main reason being they were “awaiting documentation”.
Patterson Ross said tenants often reject properties because they are unfit for their needs. This could include being offered a place with stairs.
“Their disability or mobility issues means that it’s not actually appropriate for them,” he said.
He said the emphasis on the waitlist could be detrimental, as past governments tightened eligibility criteria or reclassified applicants.
“That reduced the number of people on the list without actually reducing the number of people who need the housing,” he said.
“What we should be focusing on is that people who need support need a better alternative than the private rental market is offering, and not the size of the waiting list itself.”
The state housing minister, Rose Jackson, said she knew “there is so much more to do to rebuild our social housing system”.
“It breaks my heart to hear these stories and strengthens my resolve and determination to build homes for people in need and get people off the waiting list,” she said. “We will have more a lot more to say in the upcoming budget.”
Homelessness NSW’s chief executive, Dom Rowe, said the social housing waitlist was “broken” and called on the government to build 5,000 new social homes each year for the next decade.
“People are skipping meals, medicine and other basics just to keep up with soaring rental payments. Others are forced to choose between unsafe or overcrowded accommodation and sleeping rough,” she said.
“Two-in-five people taken in custody said they had been homeless immediately beforehand while nearly half expected to be released from jail into homelessness.”
