The homeless figures are definitely distorted to some extent by those playing the system. I regularly collect mytaxi clients from houses in the northside suburbs and bring them to hotels or other "emergency" accommodation where they spend the night to give themselves a chance of winning some sort of house as the crisis is addressed. These aren't people who would be sleeping on the street, they're generally youngsters (generally with kids of their own) living with their parents... they can afford the taxi fare so they're a long way from destitute. However, most of them are either unemployed or in low paid jobs so it's probably the only way they'll ever get a house of their own.