Australia's key medical association has slammed parts of the Rudd Government's $1.2 billion white paper on homelessness, saying the ''no exits into homelessness'' strategy is ill-conceived and impossible to carry out.
Under the National Partnership on Homelessness, state and territory governments would implement a policy of no exits into homelessness from statutory, custodial care and hospital, mental health and drug and alcohol services.
Australian Medical Association national president Rosanna Capolingua said doctors would discharge patients even if they had no place to go or risk banking up an already stretched system.
''It's wonderful to make a statement that we'll not discharge anyone into homelessness, but you have to put the reality behind that ... Where are they going to go? So the equation is not complete,'' Dr Capolingua said.
The Road Home has promised $1.2billion over four years $800million for new homelessness services and $400 million over two years to provide greater investment in social housing.
Dr Capolingua said a doctor's primary concern were patients who arrived with acute needs.
''We know we need 3750 more beds across Australia in the public hospital system ... but if you can't discharge them into homelessness and we can't leave them in the hospitals, where do they go?
''If they stay in the hospital they back up the beds and increase the problem we have existing.
''If we discharge them they have nowhere to go.'' She said the policy would harm an already ailing public health system.
''We can't keep people in hospital unless they increase the bed numbers enormously and they are not increasing them to the standard we need to keep the status quo,'' she said.
ACT Council of Social Service chief executive Roslyn Dundas warned Canberra may receive a smaller share of the funding, as the territory's homeless statistics did not tell the full story.
''While the report highlighted the number of people sleeping rough in Canberra was quite low compared to the rest of the nation, we also know we have a 70 per cent turn-away rate from crisis accommodation, the highest or second highest in the nation,'' Ms Dundas said.
''We have a high waiting list for public housing, we have a bottleneck that means people can't leave crisis accommodation,'' she said.
Greens MLA Amanda Bresnan said mental illness was a factor in up to 75 per cent of homelessness cases in Australia and called for a consolidated approach to homelessness.
''The $1.2 billion in the Federal Government's homelessness package announced this week is very welcome, but it is focused too much at the crisis end,'' Ms Bresnan said.