Demand for ACT community services: Findings from the 2025 State of the ACT Community Sector Survey
24 October 2025
Demand for community services continues to increase
The survey responses demonstrate that service demand across the ACT community sector has risen sharply and that many community organisations have been unable to keep up with this demand.
Poverty, disadvantage and other key drivers of increased demand
The top drivers of increased demand identified in the survey were:
• cost of living pressures (84%)
• access to affordable housing/homelessness (81%); and
• lack of mental health support (73%)
More clients are presenting with complex needs
The survey results suggest that client complexity is now a consistently rising pressure for the ACT community sector.
The top five changes identified contributing to driving this rise in complexity was the increase in:
• mental health conditions (79%)
• insecure housing overcrowding and/or homelessness (76%)
• poverty (70%)
• family and domestic violence (65%); and
• difficulty accessing government supports (63%).
Read the details in the ACTCOSS Factsheet – Demand for ACT Community Services 2025.
