THE approaching winter is a bleak prospect for the homeless in Sutherland Shire.
The ABS 2011 census revealed there were 325 homeless people in the region then, including 88 at Cronulla.
Luba Munro, manager of Local Community Services Association - Sutherland, said "Homelessness in the shire was probably the highest I have seen it in 16 years."
Ms Munro said homeless people choose Cronulla because of the beachside facilities and because there were areas where they cannot be found.
They tend to live in the shire because they feel safer than being in the city where they might be assaulted.
The Royal National Park is another place and anywhere they could find undercover.
Shire organisations which help the homeless continue to struggle to cater for their demands for services despite being told in March that the federal government had extended their funding as part of the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness
The Reverend George Capsis, who runs three shelters in the region, said homelessness was a mostly "hidden issue" in Cronulla.
Mr Capsis said he wanted the people in his homes to progress eventually to a place of their own and become self-sufficent.
"They don't just require a roof over their heads, they require support and understanding and love — all the things you want in a home," he said.
"So we try to create that as best as we can."
A Sutherland Shire Council spokesman said the community needed a network of services to provide solutions that tackled the reasons people became homeless.
These reasons are usually linked to mental health problems, family break-ups and unemployment.
"Funding for services is being allocated to regional organisations which can be unresponsive to the needs within the shire," the spokesman said.
A spokesman for the Minister for Social Services and Cook MP Scott Morrison said the federal government did not regulate how the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness funding affected shire organisations.
Geoff Hayward, 37, who has been homeless on and off since he was 17, is living in housing run by Mr Capsis.
Mr Hayward said he had not received government help since he became homeless.
"There is a homeless person hotline, then there is jail and that's about it," he said.
