The traditional model of social work often relies on a simple premise. A person in need walks through the front door of an agency, asks for help, and receives a referral. That model works well for many things. But it can easily fail when we talk about entrenched homelessness.
At Merri Outreach Support Service (MOSS), we know that waiting behind a desk does not end homelessness. For Victoria’s most vulnerable people, a desk is a barrier. An office feels like another institution ready to deliver another rejection. That is why assertive outreach is the bedrock of our strategy to support people sleeping rough. We go to the parks, the alleyways, the cars, and the riverbanks. We go to where people are actually sleeping.
Assertive outreach means leaving the office and stepping into the community. Workers build trust over time. They help people connect with housing, health care, mental health support, alcohol and other drug treatment, legal help, and basic community services. This is not a quick process. Effective outreach is persistent, highly respectful, deeply practical, and completely led by the person’s immediate needs.
The Heavy Toll of a System Under Too Much Strain
To understand why assertive outreach matters so much, we must look at the history of those who sleep rough in Victoria. The people our teams meet have almost always experienced repeated service-system failure. They have tried to get help before. They have filled out the forms. They have waited in the queues. Often, they have been turned away because they missed an appointment, lacked the right documentation, or had complex needs that a standard service could not accommodate.
Compound that systemic failure with profound personal trauma, and you can create a deep, understandable mistrust of authority. A person living on the street expects to be moved on, ignored, or let down.
When a MOSS outreach worker approaches someone sleeping in a local park, that person might not engage on the first visit. They might tell our worker to leave them alone on the second, third, and fourth visits. We expect this. We do not write a file note saying, ‘client refused service’ and close the case. We come back. We offer a hot drink, a pair of dry socks, or simply a friendly greeting. By the fifth or perhaps the tenth visit, that consistent presence starts to break down the walls of trauma.
This persistence is the defining characteristic of assertive outreach. We treat all people equally by ensuring they feel welcomed and connected, even if that connection starts with a brief conversation under a bridge. We let the individual set the pace. If their most pressing need today is fixing a toothache or replacing a lost Medicare card, we start there. We do not force conversations about long-term housing until the person feels secure enough to trust us with their future.
Best Practices and the Evidence Behind the Approach
High-quality research into homelessness consistently supports this street-level approach. Studies from across Australia and internationally show that assertive outreach significantly reduces the time people spend sleeping rough. The evidence points to several core best practices that make this work successful.
First, outreach must be multidisciplinary. Homelessness is rarely just a housing problem; it intersects heavily with physical health, mental health, and substance use. When outreach workers connect with someone on the street, they constantly assess these overlapping needs. They act as a vital bridge to clinical services, ensuring that a person receives medical attention or mental health support before small issues escalate into life-threatening crises.
Second, outreach must be place-based and community-focused. Workers require a deep understanding of their local area. They need to know exactly where people sleep, who the local stakeholders are, and how the local police and council operate. This embedded local knowledge means outreach teams can spot new rough sleepers quickly, intervening early before someone becomes entrenched in street life.
Third, the transition from street to home demands seamless continuity of care. The work absolutely does not stop the moment someone receives a set of house keys. Moving into a property after years on the street can be a massive psychological shock. The silence of a room can be deafening, and the responsibilities of a tenancy can feel overwhelming, especially for people who still have trauma or mental health challenges to manage.
Assertive outreach principles must continue into this settling period. Continuous, life-changing support wraps around the individual, designed to make them feel secure and empowered in their new environment. This involves practical assistance like setting up utilities, building connections with local community groups, and learning to manage a household. This vital post-crisis support is the only way to truly sustain housing and prevent a return to homelessness.
MOSS on the Frontline
Since 1989, MOSS has supported vulnerable Victorians by providing practical alternatives to homelessness. Right now, our teams deliver locally funded assertive outreach across Banyule, Darebin, and Merri-bek.
In these areas, we see the real-time impact of the housing crisis. We meet older women who have worked their whole lives and find themselves living in their cars after a rent increase. We meet young people fleeing family violence with nowhere else to go. We meet men battling severe mental health episodes who have fallen through every available safety net.
Our local programs allow us to be highly responsive. When a council worker or a concerned resident reports someone sleeping rough, we deploy our teams to make contact. We focus on building relationships. We coordinate with local health networks and legal clinics to bring services directly to the person. This targeted, compassionate approach changes lives every single day.
However, the demand for this intensive support is growing faster than local resources can manage. The cost of living crisis, a severe shortage of public housing, and strained mental health systems are pushing more Victorians onto the streets. We are seeing rough sleeping expand well beyond its traditional boundaries.
A Statewide Shift in Funding
The Victorian Government has clearly recognised this changing geography. For many years, rough sleeping was viewed primarily as an inner-city issue. Funding and services were heavily concentrated in the Melbourne CBD. Today, that picture is radically different. We see visible homelessness stretching deep into the outer suburbs and regional corridors.
In a highly positive development, the Victorian Government recently released a statewide funding opportunity to expand assertive outreach coverage. This package acknowledges that vulnerable people exist in every postcode and deserve the same level of intensive, face-to-face support regardless of where they sleep.
MOSS is currently preparing comprehensive submissions for the Hume–Merri-bek and North-Eastern Melbourne catchments. Securing this funding would allow us to scale up our proven models and reach significantly more people.
The expectations attached to this tender are specific and ambitious. The government expects each funded area to reach 120 new people a year who are sleeping rough and who are not currently connected with any homelessness services.
Finding and engaging 120 disconnected individuals requires serious groundwork. These are people who have actively dropped off the radar. They are avoiding major service hubs. They are sleeping in hidden bushland reserves, industrial estates, and hospital car parks. Reaching them will require skilled, dedicated outreach workers who have the time and resources to search these locations, build trust from scratch, and slowly guide these individuals back into the support system.
Facing the Scale of Need
While we welcome this new funding framework, it also forces us to ask a difficult but necessary question. Is the funding enough for the true scale of need?
The target of 120 new people per catchment is a solid starting point. Yet, local councils, community groups, and our own field teams report higher numbers that suggest the actual population of rough sleepers is significantly greater.
When outreach teams are underfunded or spread too thin, the quality of engagement drops. Workers are forced to rush interactions. They lose the time required to sit with a person for an hour, share a meal, and build the rapport that makes long-term housing success possible. Chronic underfunding turns assertive outreach into a basic monitoring service rather than an intervention service.
To truly end homelessness in Victoria, the investment in assertive outreach must match the severity of the housing crisis. Funding models need to account for the intense, time-consuming nature of trauma-informed care. A worker might spend forty hours over six months simply getting an individual to agree to a medical check-up. That time is incredibly valuable, but it is expensive to facilitate.
Furthermore, assertive outreach cannot exist in a vacuum. It relies entirely on the availability of exit points. Our workers can build perfect relationships, complete all the necessary assessments, and prepare a person for housing. If there are no affordable, secure homes available for that person to move into, the outreach process stalls. We then end up managing people in a state of permanent crisis rather than resolving their homelessness. We need the assertive outreach expansion to run in parallel with a massive increase in social and public housing stock.
Strengthening Communities Together
Victoria stands at a critical juncture. The decisions we make now about how we fund and deliver street-level support will dictate the shape of our communities for decades to come.
Assertive outreach represents the best of our community values. It requires us to look directly at the most uncomfortable parts of our society and respond with practical empathy. It demands that we refuse to give up on people, no matter how complex their behaviour or how long they have been disconnected.
At MOSS, we believe that ending homelessness is entirely possible. It starts by treating every person we encounter with dignity. It continues by offering life-changing programs that empower vulnerable Victorians to take control of their futures.
Every donation to MOSS over $2 is fully tax-deductible. As a registered charity, MOSS relies on your support to fund our street-level outreach. Your gift of a donation buys the practical resources our teams need to help vulnerable Victorians transition from sleeping rough to a secure, long-term home. Stand with us to build a connected Victoria where everyone feels welcomed, supported, and safe.