The council confirmed that 135 people asked for their fines to be wiped last financial year due to special circumstances, which include homelessness and addiction. Of those, 112 were successful.

This compares to just 32 applications in 2011-12, of which 22 were successful.

The waivers potentially cost the council thousands of dollars in potential revenue.

Lucy Adams, principal lawyer and manager of homeless law at Justice Connect, said that car-parking fines were among the most common legal issues that clients faced.

"Fines are an added barrier to people exiting homelessness because they have debts and it is very humiliating," she said. "It kicks people when they're already down. One client told me it makes him feel like he's not part of society.

"Fining people for homelessness is not the answer."

Daniel* lived in the back of his truck for almost two years, and said he received parking fines almost every day.

"I was frustrated and angry but there was nothing I could do about it. I could never pay it back," he told Fairfax Media. "I was forced to move but no one could tell me where.

"They [the council] knew I was homeless but they didn't care."

He had his truck towed once by a council and said it cost him all the money he had at the time to have it released.

"They should stop fining people and stop forcing them on the streets. They were trying to force me out on the streets."

Multiple reports have stated that Melbourne's homeless population has risen in recent years, especially the number of rough sleepers in the CBD.

In the past five years, the number of people sleeping in their cars in Victoria has doubled. Numbers have jumped from 961 men and women in 2011-12, to 1953 in 2014-15, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Jenny Smith, chief executive of the Council to Homeless Persons, said a lack of affordable rental properties was a major cause of this type of homelessness.

"Our homelessness services are doing their best to meet demand from families and individuals seeking a safe home, but when there are not enough affordable, available options in sight, they are working against the tide."

Ms Smith said that fines unfairly affected homeless people, who are forced to conduct their private lives in public.

"While people who are living homeless are now able to apply for an enforcement order or fine to be cancelled due to the special circumstances that led to their offence, the number of fines being incurred by people forced to sleep in cars has not decreased."

People who have received parking fines and wish to contest them because they are unable to pay can do so at the Magistrate Court's specialist division. Special circumstances include serious mental illness and some neurological disorders, including acquired brain injury and Huntington's disease.

Ms Smith said the only way for homeless people to avoid parking fines was to get them out of cars and into suitable accommodation.

"To do that we need more social and affordable housing ready to go, a statewide affordable housing strategy, and both state and federal government funding to support it or we will see more families, and that means more children, homeless."

* Not his real name