Ministerial Homelessness Reform Advisory Group – Communique December 2025

Victoria’s Ministerial Homelessness Reform Advisory Group (MHRAG) is an ongoing forum for the Specialist Homelessness Sector and people with lived experience of homelessness to collaborate with the Government to shape system reform, strengthen sector capacity and capability, and guide best practice evidence-based approaches to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring.

The MHRAG includes representation from metro and regional SHS organisations as well as the Homelessness Lived Experience Reference Group. It’s co-chaired by the Hon. Harriet Shing, Minister for Housing, and Council to Homeless Persons CEO Deborah Di Natale, and meets quarterly.

Here’s a summary of the group’s latest Communique, released after the Group met in November and December 2025.

You can read the full Communique here.

Key milestones in 2025

Milestones in 2025 included:

• A full-day workshop in early February 2025, which considered the issues of greatest concern and specified areas for future investment and reform. Advice developed during the workshops was presented to the Minster for Housing and Building on 27 February 2025, including recommendations for the forthcoming budget.
  
• The release of the 2025-26 Budget in May, which extended funding for 18 homelessness programs as recommended by the MHRAG proposal in February as an important precondition for any reform implementation.
  
• The consideration in August by the MHRAG of key actions under each domain and established a time limited working group to develop further detail on recommended phasing to inform implementation planning.

Current priorities

Members of the MHRAG Working Group met over November and December, including key sector leaders across mainstream and Aboriginal homelessness sectors, supported by Homes Victoria, to further develop actions for priority implementation.

At the conclusion of the session, the Working Group reflected on what has been discussed at the full MHRAG over the last 12 months. The need for greater standardisation across the sector was reiterated and the following activities for homelessness reform implementation were prioritised:

1. Commitment to supporting the delivery of the Blueprint for an Aboriginal-specific homelessness service system in Victoria, including ensuring a 10 per cent share of homelessness funding is provided to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations by 30 June 2029 through recontracting of existing funded activity from mainstream providers.
2. New system-level and place-based governance arrangements (including local allocation panels) to improve place-based collaboration, planning and service delivery and help local areas direct resources to where they are needed most.
3. Expanding assertive outreach services to support rough sleepers and strengthen the pathways into a significantly increased Housing First service system.
4. Improving the evidence-base across homelessness programs to allow for better learning across the services, ensure quality and safety standards are maintained and to direct investments to the right places and to programs that work.
5. New Workforce Development support for embedding Lived Experience workers into governance, design and delivery of homelessness services including the new system and place-based governance model.
6. Introducing a triage tool prior to Initial Assessment and Planning to direct people quickly and more effectively to the right types of support and relieve pressures on entry points.

Next steps

Building on these directions, Homes Victoria will work alongside the sector to initiate key actions in early 2026, use the outputs to inform upcoming funding deliberations, and incorporate this advice into the 2026–27 Budget process.

Read the full Communique.