"My concern is, who is doing anything?" he said. "We've got to stir someone up for sure. These things need to be pursued.

"It's all very well to have meetings and talk about it. Are people following it through with the minister, the department, the council?"

Mr Daffy raised it with Cr Mike Neoh because he wanted to see it as an election issue, something that wasn't on any candidates' radar last time.

Cr Neoh, who is running for re-election in October, said all levels of government should have a homelessness strategy.

He said the council in recent times implemented an affordable housing grant project which was very successful to get low income earners into their first home, but homeless and social housing was another issue and a gap in the city's strategic planning.

Cr Neoh said the state government should adopt mandatory inclusion zones, something that had been done in South Australia where 15 per cent of significant new housing builds were for affordable housing - and five per cent of that was for high needs groups.

Mr Daffy, who has worked with St Vincent de Pauls for more than 50 years, said change wasn't going to happen overnight but it was time to pressure the government to at least start planning for more low-cost accommodation.

"We need people to be screaming about more housing that is affordable because the rents are just going up and up in Warrnambool," he said,

Mr Daffy said when JobSeeker and JobKeeper allowances were cut back people would start to "feel the pinch" of the coronavirus pandemic.

He said he was only trying to "stir up" governments and council to be aware that there were people that were homeless and "we need to start to worry about them".

"I've been with St Vinnies for a long while and I've never seen the demand so great," he said.

He said a government response to questions in January said there were only four empty public houses in Warrnambool, but he said he could have easily found 24, all while there were 800 people across the wider region on the waiting list.

Mr Daffy said there were people who were camping out in Warrnambool.

"I know a couple of months ago there was a woman not able to receive any benefits who was using a sleeping bag and camping in the teatree down beyond the caravan park. She assured me it's warm at night," he said.

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