More to housing crisis help than future fund: minister

The housing minister says the Albanese government has done more to ease the housing crisis than it promised at the election, as intense negotiations with the crossbench continue over its central housing future fund policy. 

Housing Minister Julie Collins, who announced extra funding for homelessness services on Friday, declined to comment on ongoing negotiations with the Greens and independents needed to enshrine its Housing Australia Future Fund into legislation. 

Labor needs the Greens and two crossbenchers to pass the bill, which would result in 30,000 new social housing dwellings being built in the first five years, with up to $500m spent each year.

Asked if the government would commit to more funding for social and affordable housing to secure crossbencher votes, Ms Collins said the fund was not the only source of funding targeted at solving the housing crisis.

"We have done more than our election commitments, the (Housing) Accord was not an election commitment - that is a new agreement with states and territories, whereby we're putting an additional $350m from 2024, an additional 10,000 affordable rental homes coming from the federal government, matched by states and territories," she told ABC's RN.

The government also announced an additional $67.5 million to states and territories for homelessness services on Friday as an add-on to the 12-month extension to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement.

In total, Labor has committed almost $1.7 billion to the states and territories for homelessness services this year.

Ms Collins said the federal government could not resolve Australia's housing troubles alone. 

"What we need to do is leverage as much investment as we can across all tiers of government and across the sector," she said.

"One of the things that the HAFF will do is it will allow institutional investors and support institutional investors to put even more funds into social and affordable housing."

The new homelessness funding announcement follows new census data released earlier this week showing nearly 123,000 people were homeless in 2021.

That's a 5.2 per cent increase since 2016, with the majority of newly homeless people women and one-third of them aged less than 24.

Ms Collins said the homelessness funding boost was a crucial intervention as the rates continue to increase.

"Too many Australians were experiencing homelessness on Census night ... this plan will be the first of its kind in our nation's history and deliver lasting change for Australians facing housing challenges," she said.