Community services can't meet demand AUSTRALIA'S frontline community services are unable to meet growing demand, and the homeless and mentally ill are hurting most, a new report has found. The largest survey of the nation's community services sector paints a disturbing picture of a sector under critical pressure. Housing availability and affordability is the greatest unmet need for welfare clients, according to the annual Australian community sector survey of more than 500 agencies. "The community sector is being undermined by severe underfunding and lack of action to deal with the national housing affordability and availability crisis," said Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) deputy CEO Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine. Nearly 70 per cent of housing and homeless services reported struggling to meet demand, with a 5 per cent increase in the number of people in need who they were forced to turn away. "Australia's housing affordability crisis is having a devastating impact, especially for people on the lowest incomes," said Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine. The report found almost 80 per cent of people who turned to the housing and homeless services were wholly reliant on income support payments. "This is extremely alarming and further evidence of the damage being caused by keeping allowance payments such as Newstart as low as $35 a day," Dr Boyd-Caine said. Across the welfare sector, all of the services overwhelmingly nominated housing as the greatest need of clients coming to them for help. It was followed by community-based care and treatment for mental illness and emergency relief. But, the report found, the entire sector was struggling to meet the demands of their client groups. Sixty-three per cent of legal services failed to meet demand, along with 52 per cent of youth services, 47 per cent of mental health services and 46 per cent of domestic violence and sexual assault services. Dr Boyd-Caine said most services were having to target their services more tightly or limit their service levels. Legal service reported the highest level of turn-aways at 20 per cent, with 17 per cent of clients turned away from youth services and 13 per cent of domestic violence victims. A majority of all services reported that the cost of delivering services exceeded revenue. Dr Boyd-Caine is calling for urgent action to address the housing issues, along with a plan to increase low income support allowance payments like Newstart to prevent more people falling into poverty and placing even further demands on the services.