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Who We Help

We bring about change for people at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness.

We do this by empowering local, smaller, grassroots community organisations to respond to homelessness innovatively and in ways that work for their community.

Our Impact so far

15Million

Funds Dsitributed

1,259

Organisations Supported

181,800

SleepSafe Kits Donated

We recognise that homelessness can happen to anybody, and can take many different forms. So we support people from all walks of life and help to provide the right support at the right time to help end or prevent homelessness. 

31% of people we support are sleeping rough in a tent, car, or makeshift camp

30% of people we support identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 

9% of people we support as LGBTQIA+

38% of people we support are young people under 24 years of age

Through our work, we support grassroots organisations and people in need through 6 areas of impact:

Supporting people towards a home → Olivia’s story
Olivia was 18 when she first experienced homelessness. As a refugee, she had little support and spent years with significant mental health challenges, cycling from service to service. Now at 24, she’s just secured long term housing and with StreetSmart’s help, Olicia moved in with essential furniture from kitchen appliances to soft sheets for the bed, to create a real home.
Providing immediate emergency relief → Tracy’s story
Tracy is in her 20’s and living out of her car after being priced out of her rental. She was struggling to pay for petrol, food, and medication. With StreetSmart’s help, a local community service could cover her car registration costs. This meant she could avoid sleeping rough and still legally drive to work, while working towards long term housing.
Boosting health and wellbeing → Jerry’s Story
Mahmoud is in his 30’s and his young family were going hungry to keep up with their increased rent. At risk of homelessness, a StreetSmart funded food agency provided hampers with fresh produce, eggs, dairy and meat to Mahmoud’s family. This allowed them to keep a roof over their heads and fill the lunchboxes. “We are so grateful. Thank you for providing hope, and a sense of stability and relief, to our family”.
Boosting health and wellbeing → Jerry’s Story
StreetSmart funding has been critical for our street outreach service, helping us stock up with medical supplies like bandages and cover running costs like petrol to provide free healthcare. Recently we helped Jerry, who is in his late fifties and has been homeless for more than 8 years. With outreach, we prevented Jerry’s wounds from infection and the associated hospital admission, and linked him with further housing support.   
Access to education and employment → Sam’s Story
Sam experienced abuse and homelessness from a young age. Having the chance to be trained and work at a local enterprise turned things around. Sam says “the stable income means life is more manageable and I’m no longer relying on Centrelink. I can buy proper food now and have a fully stocked up fridge at home for the first time in my life” (FY23)
Strengthening through advocacy → Mackenzie’s Story
“Fundraising brought the school together for an important cause and taught us that a small contribution can go a long way. It also started a conversation around homelessness that we know our students will take back to families and the wider community”
For more information or to discuss partnerships opportunities, please email: partners@streetsmartaustralia.org
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Impact you can see with the drop of a pin

Empowering smaller, grassroots community organisations

Our community partners are often under-resourced, have limited fundraising capacity and find making formal applications for funding challenging. We seek out and support these organisations, keeping doors open, programs running, and people supported.

  • 66% of our distributions support organisations with an annual turnover under $2 million
  • 44% of our distributions support organisations with less than 10 staff
  • 40% of our distributions supported people in regional communities

“StreetSmart Australia have a deep understanding of the issues people experiencing homelessness face every day and work hard to support creative, effective solutions to these issues. They also have a great awareness of the challenges faced by organisations such as ours that are working ‘at the coalface’ to support those experiencing homelessness.”

Miranda Gillespie, Southern Peninsula Community Information and Support Centre

"Your grants make all the difference to a small organisation like Karinya that has limited resources, one of the most limited being time! The less time spent filling in forms and ticking boxes the more time can be spent engaging with the young people we work with and focusing on their immediate needs. Thank you!"

Tasha Griffiths, Karinya Young Women’s Service

“I love how simple you make this for organisations that run on volunteer hours... leaves us more capacity to get out there and do the things we should be doing!”

Anonymous, Community Partner Survey

Recently Funded Projects 

Community GrantsGrant ImpactProjects StreetSmartRecently Funded
February 12, 2026

Supporting 20 prevention based responses to homelessness across Australia

Our End of Year appeal was generously supported by our giving community allowing 20 smaller, grassroots organisations to scale up their prevention programs to intervene early and stop homelessness before…
Community GrantsGrant ImpactProjects StreetSmartRecently Funded
December 12, 2025

$100,000 helps to tackle poverty and homelessness

Responding to poverty and homelessness was the aim of our collective giving campaign 'A Fair Go'. 20 grants are empowering grassroots responses to these vulnerabilities
CafeSmartCommunity GrantsGrant ImpactProjects StreetSmartRecently FundedStreetSmart News
December 2, 2025

Local-led CafeSmart grants help 7,460 people facing homelessness

CafeSmart brought us together throughout Homelessness week, using coffee and community action to raise an incredible $201,000 for local grassroots organisations.

Interested in receiving support? Here is what you need to know…

StreetSmart plays a unique role in the homelessness sector providing funding and support for smaller community-based and grassroots homelessness and community services. These front-line services are under-resourced, have limited fundraising capacity and find making formal applications for funding challenging. We support these organisations to plug funding gaps, support core programs and enable them to innovate and test new ideas.

We are able to fund both non-DGR and DGR organisations. Our focus is the support of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We ask larger organisations (over $2 million + annual turnover) to contact us to discuss appropriateness of an application.

Please read our full grant making guidelines below for further information and contact details.