Impact Report 2024—2025

Impact measure 2

Mother and daughter cooking together in a bright kitchen, smiling and enjoying time at home.

Increase in number of clients with secure housing on exit from a Launch Housing support program

This measure tracks how many people secure safe, stable housing when they exit key Launch Housing support programs. Supporting people into housing is a core aim of our support programs and this measure reflects our commitment to working alongside clients to achieve sustainable housing outcomes.

Summary

3,838 clients secured housing after using a key Launch Housing support program. Over the last five years, the proportion of clients exiting into housing has remained steady at around 70–75%. Without an increase in social and affordable housing stock, the number of clients we can successfully house cannot grow significantly.

Over the last 12 months, we have delivered strong outcomes for priority cohorts

This year, 3,838 clients secured housing after using a Launch Housing support program. Despite the scale and complexity of Melbourne’s housing crisis, our integrated support programs continue to deliver strong outcomes for priority cohorts. At our Education First Youth Foyers, 91% of students exited into secure housing, including all First Nations residents who exited this year.

In the Cornelia Program, designed for pregnant women and new mothers experiencing homelessness, 87% of women moved into long-term housing this year. This reflects a consistent trend we see in our data: when housing is integrated with tailored health, education and social supports, outcomes are not only stronger, they are more likely to be sustained over time, compared to housing only approaches.

Compared to the previous year, this represents a 4% increase across all clients. It is a modest improvement, but not a game changer given the scale of Melbourne’s housing crisis.

Over the last five years, our impact has stabilised because funding and housing supply remains stagnant

The bigger picture: why the needle is not shifting

Over the last five years, the proportion of people exiting Launch Housing support programs into stable housing has remained steady at around 70–75%, as shown in Figure 1 below. While this shows that we are continuing to help thousands of people secure and maintain housing every year, it also highlights a systemic bottleneck.

Despite moderate increases in housing supply, demand has continued to grow even faster meaning the overall number of people we can successfully house has not shifted at the scale required. In other words, more housing has helped individuals but has not yet shifted population-level homelessness because housing supply and funding have not kept pace with need.

The evidence shows that our impact has stabilised because both social housing investment and supply remain constrained relative to demand.

Line graph showing rates remaining steady between 70% to 75% over five years, with a small dip in FY 2023–24 before recovery.
Figure 1: Percentage of clients in secure housing on exit from key programs, FY 2020–21 to FY 2024–25. Rates were mostly steady over this period.

The homelessness service system also needs to be strengthened to better support people who have experienced chronic homelessness and those who experience additional barriers and challenges, such as First Nations clients, families, and people with chronic health conditions.

The needle is not shifting quickly enough. This is why Launch Housing continues to advocate for fit-for-purpose housing stock and systems-level reforms, including a dedicated funding model for building family-focused housing.

Impact stories

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Client journey

Person sitting on the ground under a concrete structure wrapped in a blanket, sitting on cardboard box, with belongings nearby, representing the need for outreach and support.
Journey out of rough sleeping
This journey, illustrative of many journeys from rough sleeping in Melbourne, shows how systemic barriers delay a person’s way out of sleeping rough. Lack of housing options, and lack of access to ID and Medicare mean people are sleeping rough for long periods, often with urgent or untreated health needs. In Melbourne, Launch Housing support workers have supported 2,453 people sleeping rough across 8 local councils since 2019. Persistent outreach, embedded healthcare and an approach that prioritises immediate accommodation contribute to a person sustaining safe housing.
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Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we live and work. As we create safe and welcoming homes, we honour the people of the Kulin nation and their enduring connection to their home we call Naarm, Melbourne.

We pay our respects to all First Nations Elders, past and present.

It is important that we acknowledge that the contemporary housing experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people cannot be separated from their historical experience of dispossession and dislocation. Aboriginal Victorians are overrepresented in the population experiencing homelessness, with census data confirming that Aboriginal Victorians experience homelessness at over five times the rate for non-Aboriginal people.

We support the development of a culturally safe Aboriginal housing and homelessness sector based on principles of self-determination and will continue to do what we can to help make this happen.

We are committed to understanding how our services are impacting Aboriginal clients and, where relevant, we have disaggregated our 10 Impact Measures to report Aboriginal client outcomes.