Increase in number of high acuity clients with secure housing
This measure tracks the number of people with complex needs supported into safe, stable housing managed by Launch Housing. It reflects our commitment to increasing the supply of long-term, appropriate housing and providing the intensive supports people need to sustain it.
Summary
Last year, 332 new clients with complex needs secured housing, consistent with previous years. Integrating Housing First principles across our Specialist Homelessness Services and community housing programs continues to underpin this success.
Fewer new tenancies, alongside strong sustainment rates, show that our integrated practice model delivers lasting housing stability and improved outcomes.
Over the last 12 months, we've seen people stay housed for longer in our properties
This year, 332 new clients with complex needs secured housing in properties owned or managed by Launch Housing. This result is consistent with previous years and demonstrates our continued focus on supporting people with the most complex barriers to housing.
While this represents a 4.6% decrease in new tenancies compared to the previous year, it points to greater housing stability. Fewer new tenancies, coupled with strong sustainment rates, indicate that more people are remaining safely housed for longer periods — a positive sign of enduring impact rather than reduced demand.
Central to this progress is our organisation-wide adoption of Housing First principles. By embedding these principles across both our Specialist Homelessness Services and community housing operations, we provide immediate access to housing alongside tailored, multidisciplinary supports. This integrated practice model helps clients build stability, wellbeing and independence.
Over the last five years, our Housing First principles have helped people with complex needs achieve stability, even within a constrained housing system
For people with complex needs, Housing First approaches — including harm minimisation — can be life-changing.
Housing First ensures that a stable home is the foundation, not the reward, for recovery and stability. Our data over the past five years shows that this approach, coupled with harm reduction, works. Rather than shutting people out of the system, we meet people where they are at. This enables deeper engagement with our high acuity clients, many of whom face overlapping trauma, addiction, and health challenges.
By reducing barriers to engagement and intentionally building relationships and trust with clients, our approach has led to greater take up of health services, fewer crisis presentations to emergency departments and improved tenancy sustainment.
Growth during COVID-19 showed what is possible when Housing First principles and government funding align
When the pandemic hit, governments and services moved quickly to keep people safe, including significantly scaling up housing options. Emergency hotel programs were rolled out across Victoria and Launch Housing head-leased additional properties through the Homelessness to a Home program. During this period, we saw a sharp increase in both active and new tenancies.
Of the clients housed by Launch Housing through the Homelessness to a Home program, 95% were in stable housing as at 1 September 2023; 93% of those who secured housing through the program sustained their tenancy for more than 12 months, and 53% remained housed for more than 24 months. In total, 286 Launch Housing clients in the Homelessness to a Home program maintained their tenancy for the full duration of the program.
This period demonstrated what is possible when Housing First principles and government investment work hand in hand. While emergency measures have since been rolled back and tenancy numbers returned to pre-COVID levels, our data tells a clear story: the number of clients we can house is shaped by housing supply and funding parameters — not by need or capability. Stable client numbers reflect system constraints, not reduced demand.
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