But for the majority of us, homelessness is so vastly different to the circumstances we experience that we find it difficult to accept it exists in that very same community. And also, just how perilously close to that condition each of us are.

Ballarat people from many backgrounds  – gender, ethnicity, education level and age – can and do experience homelessness in 2016. Worryingly, the number of families with children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness is on the rise.

Let’s be clear from the outset. Homelessness is not who you are. Rather, it is a condition or set of circumstances you are experiencing. People who experience homelessness are not homeless people. How we think and speak about people can have a profound effect on the way they are viewed by the community and themselves.

The 2011 Census showed 520 people in Ballarat were experiencing homelessness that evening, an increase of almost 21 per cent from 2006. In simple terms, that equates to one in every 183 of us. Your colleagues at work, people you grew up with, classmates of your children at school, your one-time neighbours. Alarmingly, we know the often silent nature of homelessness meant many people were not reflected in that 520. There’s no doubt the true number would have been much higher.

Homelessness is not a choice. Most people in Ballarat who are homeless are in that situation as a result of as little as one traumatic event, such as family violence, job loss, sexual abuse or loss of a partner. Those working in the sector know it only takes one such trauma for life to quickly unravel.

Life chances potentially provide us with a clear means of explaining this pathway into homelessness. Chances to realise your goals in life for education, health and material reward quickly diminish when opportunities are removed or remain closed to you.

Irrespective of the many pathways people come to experience homelessness, the one thing they all have in common is poverty.

Much has been written about housing stress, with Ballarat not immune to its insidious influence. The 2011 Census reported that more than 6500 Ballarat households experienced housing stress, with the cost of maintaining a home consuming more than 30 per cent of available income. For a proportion of those people, the fall into homelessness had begun.

What Ballarat can be proud of is the quantum of support for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. There’s a diverse range of services and initiatives trying to bridge the gap by providing emergency accommodation, food, clothing, health needs, education and counselling.

Nevertheless, without real-time and genuine capacity through which people can be supported to access affordable housing, is making being homeless more tolerable all we are really able to do?

The Ballarat community needs to believe that, together, it can reduce the experience of homelessness. This will be achieved through recognition that homelessness harms all of us. We need to build a shared vision, create action at a local level and advocate to state and federal governments for these commitments.

Ballarat has proven time and again it has the people, resources and compassion required for this level of community activism. Let’s get on with it.

Melanie Robertson is chief executive of the Committee for Ballarat