Shame and fear forcing international visitors to become Australia's new homeless generation

Australia has a growing homelessness problem. It took one man's death to shine a light on it Wed 10 Jun 2026 at 5:05am Lost to his family and lost to the world, a man dies. His death quiet, unheralded. He's not found for six days. Unnoticed even as thousands walk by. This is no remote outpost. It's central Sydney, and as winter settles in, support services are warning that more deaths like this will happen. Some are mothers who have fled arranged marriages and international students who would rather die of shame than tell their families. They are homeless, like Bikram Lama, who The Guardian reported to be a former international student from Nepal. His death outside St James train station has shone a light on an invisible situation taking place on Australia's streets. These homeless are not citizens, and they don't have permanent residence, but they are stuck here, unable to return home or waiting on seemingly endless temporary visas, hoping Australia will allow them to stay. Another Nepalese national in dire straits Shree is also Nepalese. She told 7.30 she was "tricked and coerced" into coming to Australia. "I was 23 when I got sorted into this arranged marriage with a Nepalese guy who was Australian,"she said. "My relatives knew him, so they brought this marriage proposal four times to me. I said, 'No, no, I don't want to get married. I don't want to get married.''' Shree says that eventually she had no choice but to fold to family pressure. And within two weeks of the marriage, her husband was physically and emotionally abusive. Within a month, she became pregnant. During the pregnancy, she lived with his extended family in Australia. "His mum would constantly mention that the only reason [her] son married me was because I was under 25 and I would produce babies," Shree told 7.30. "I was not allowed to leave the house. I had to ask permission. I didn't even have my own bank account." After she gave birth to their child, she says she became even more isolated. Shree says she was struggling with her mental health, and her husband's family taunted her by calling her "mentally ill" and suggesting that she kill herself. "'Your job is done, you've given birth',"she was told. Shree was on a bridging visa waiting for her partner-sponsored visa application to be processed. She told 7.30 that her husband then threatened to divorce her, have her visa cancelled and send her back to Nepal. He followed through with part of that threat, cancelling her visa and abandoning her, leaving her homeless. The divorce process is ongoing. Homeless services inundated Shree has been able to secure short-term crisis accommodation with the Women & Girls Emergency Centre (WAGEC), a service for women impacted by domestic violence and homelessness. Of the 200 women in its refuges on any given night, up to 50 per cent of them are non-residents. "When we have a vacancy, we're often choosing between three, four, sometimes five families about who gets that room tonight," CEO Nicole Yates told 7.30. Shree's story is common for non-resident women who come through the refuge. "She's been brought to Australia by her partner, and then if she experiences domestic violence when she gets here, he's able to cancel her application ... which then makes her ineligible for any social security, including Medicare [and] Centrelink," Ms Yates said. "Sometimes the women will say to us, 'I want to go back home and be with my family' — that's not always possible either — but they're not allowed to leave the country with that child because the men don't allow that. "I have never met a woman who would leave her children in another country with somebody who has abused her." Shree's ex-husband and their daughter are both Australian citizens. Shree has applied for a partner visa with domestic violence provisions, which, if approved, would grant her permanent residence independent of her ex-husband. However, the Department of Home Affairs website states that standard processing times for partner visas can exceed 17 months. Ms Yates says that for some women it takes years, and while they wait, they have limited rights to support themselves, which drives them into homelessness. "Often those women have no permission to work, so that means they can't study, they aren't eligible for childcare support, they can't even volunteer," Ms Yates said. That is the situation Shree faces by staying in Australia. "I cannot leave my daughter and just go because that's what he wanted me [to do]," Shree said. "If I weren't in the refuge, I would probably be sleeping rough in the streets, and who knows what would've happened to me." A dream with too high a cost Bikram's family had little money to fund his university studies in Australia. But in hopes of the opportunities an Australian qualification could offer Bikram, his family sold a portion of their farmland in their remote village, south of Kathmandu, to send him to Australia. In the years since, Bikram struggled through life in an increasingly expensive Australia, and he lost contact with his family, The Guardian reported. In 2023, he failed to renew his passport, and it wasn't until the Nepali embassy contacted Bikram's family to identify his body — which had decomposed so badly that DNA samples, dental records and fingerprints were requested — that they had any sense of what his life had become. They had no idea he had been living on the streets before he died. Just blocks away from where his body was found, St Vincent de Paul Society's Matthew Talbot Hostel has 52 beds dedicated to homeless single men. Homelessness and Housing Area Manager, James Newell, told 7.30 the driving factors were the high tuition costs for international students and the cost-of-living pressures when they arrived. "The past couple of years we are seeing a growing number of international students,"Mr Newell said. "Compound that with food and rentals and all of the extra stresses that everyone else experiences, it's a major reason why people are unable to finish their degree and find themselves on the streets." While the Talbot is open to non-residents, funding a bed for someone without social welfare payments means the service is out of pocket for taking them on. "Most of the men that stay here are on Centrelink, and they would pay their accommodation fees through Centrelink … that's a pretty standard process across most accommodation sites in inner city," Mr Newell said. "For a non-resident, they're not eligible for Centrelink. So, for those residents, we would give them emergency accommodation, which would be three months free." On average at the Talbot, non-residents hold a bed longer than those with government income, as hostel support workers try to resolve complex visa issues and find avenues for them to get cash jobs to pay for their accommodation. The pathway out of homelessness is further complicated by the fact that social housing is not an option for non-residents. The 2026 NSW Street Count, released in May, found that 2,308 people were sleeping rough in NSW, a 5 per cent increase on last year. The City of Sydney, the LGA with the state's largest homeless population, estimates that one in five rough sleepers are non-residents. Mohammad is one of them. He walks past St James station most days. "Every time I feel so bad when I walk past here," Mohammad told 7.30. "I just feel like I could have been the same guy, Bikram. It could have been my story. I feel so scared about these things." This is the first time in Mohammad's life that he has experienced homelessness. Mohammad says he came to Australia 10 years ago as an international student from Bangladesh, then moved onto a graduate visa with permission to work. He was unable to find a job related to his field of study but found employment at petrol stations and convenience stores. Most of his income was sent home to his wife and two children. In December, his working visa expired, and he started sleeping rough soon after that. He has now secured a bridging visa after applying for asylum, following a change in government in Bangladesh, where he says it is now dangerous for him and his family, who are involved in politics. He is allowed to work again, but is struggling to get a job. His wife has started asking why he has stopped sending money back. Ashamed of his situation, he has not told her or the other family that he is homeless. "She has some doubts," he told 7.30. "When someone is overseas, people have more expectations to do something good for them. "My dad, my mum, if I tell them, maybe I will be the reason for their death. "If I die ... I cannot share this scenario to my family. Never, ever." 'We will see more Bikrams' Mohammad has also been turned away from crisis accommodation many times. "At first, they will say, 'Do you have Medicare? Do you have Centrelink?' Then we can help you out. Otherwise, you have to be in a very big queue," Mohammad said. The Commonwealth Department of Social Services declined to answer questions from 7.30 but homeless services say there will be more deaths in this community if income support is not given to non-residents. "There certainly needs to be help given to those individuals, otherwise we will see more Bikrams. We will see more people die on the street," Mr Newell told 7.30. While Shree is one of the fortunate few to secure short-term accommodation to keep her off the streets, she still feels invisible. "People look over people like Bikram or me because we kind of become taboos to society," Shree said. "It's so sad that people aren't treated as human just because of immigration status." Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV