The federal government is aiming to halve the number of homeless Australians and accommodate all those sleeping rough under an ambitious new plan.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Sunday launched the government's White Paper in Sydney, which commits $1.2 billion over four years to building new housing and increasing services to prevent homelessness.
The funding is the first stage in a plan to halve homelessness and boost accommodation by 2020, and comes on top of the government's $6.1 billion affordable housing program.
The Commonwealth will fund $800 million of the new program, and the states $400 million.
"A country like this should not have this problem," Mr Rudd said at the launch.
"It's time we had a decent solution to this problem that has been around for a long time."
Every night in Australia, 105,000 people are homeless. About 16,000 of those sleep rough on the streets, Mr Rudd said.
"As a nation we can do a lot better than that," Mr Rudd said.
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