Ian Wray, long term Vinnies volunteer in Dubbo and St Vincent de Paul Society Castlereagh Regional president, said with more people on the social housing waiting list, the urgency for more homes to be made available increases.

"High and unaffordable housing costs mean that people are having to forgo other basics, such as food, heating and cooling, or essential medicines," he said.

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"And given the lengthening social housing waiting list and ongoing housing crisis, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable homes, meaning already vulnerable people are pushed into homelessness."

The latest figures released by the Department of Communities and Justice reveal NSW is facing its greatest demand for social housing since 2016.

Across the state, the number of applications for social housing places has grown by 15 percent over the past year from 49,928 to 57,550 applicants. Locally, application numbers have risen by 31 percent from 588 to 770 over the past 12 months.

Mr Wray said about half of the people seeking assistance from the local Vinnies branch were experiencing housing stress and pressure and uncertainty around housing is "all-too-common" in Dubbo.

"Without a stable, affordable home, the difficulty of holding down a job, caring for a family, or even having enough food to eat regularly all increase significantly," he said.

"The effects of housing insecurity and homelessness compound with other kinds of disadvantage to ensure people experiencing long-term and acute poverty remain excluded from society at large."

The call for more social housing comes amidst a crisis in rental vacancies and rental affordability across the region.

In Dubbo, rental vacancies currently sit at just 1.9 percent. The median rental price for a house has grown by 12.5 percent over the past 12 months and now sits at $450 a week, and rental costs for units have grown by 10.3 percent to a median of $320 a week.

Maiy Azize, spokesperson for housing advocacy group Everybody's Home, said SQM Research Weekly Rents Index data for houses and units combined shows Western NSW is among the regions where rents have seen the largest increase.

"It's been a shocking, challenging year for regional NSW tenants. Inflation is yet to peak while wages aren't keeping up," she said.

"Landlords have passed the cost of interest rate rises onto renters. Floods have had a devastating impact on lives and housing stock, and residential vacancy rates remain below one per cent in many regions."

Martin Kennedy, manager of business and public affairs at community housing provider Home in Place, said pensioners, young people, people with a disability and women and children escaping domestic violence were most impacted by the crisis.

"The rental market is broken, with supply falling well short of housing demand. Vacancy rates have plummeted across the State - in many areas, rental housing isn't just unaffordable, it's unavailable," he said.

"Whoever governs NSW after March must have a plan to confront this crisis or more people will be forced to join the list and either live with family, friends, couch surf - or worse, live in tents or their cars."

Despite the challenging market, Mr Wray said there is a simple solution to reducing the social housing wait list.

Research commissioned by the St Vincent de Paul Society shows that if the government committed to building 5,000 new social housing dwellings every year for a decade, the social housing waiting list would be reduced by three quarters.

"There is a solution and it's a simple one - more social housing dwellings need to be built," he said.

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