A not-for-profit women's support organisation has warned of a "tsunami" of older women facing homelessness - while a men's emergency shelter is seeing a growing number of refugees or people unable to speak English seeking beds.
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The ACT government has put out two tenders for services for older women and asylum seekers at risk of homelessness in Canberra.
The government is looking to spend a combined total of $4 million over the next four years on the two projects.
Safe Shelter ACT coordinator Richard Griffiths said refugees and asylum seekers had been prevented from accessing federal government income support.
"We've had some refugees coming in who are short of accommodation and have no way of connecting into the system," Mr Griffiths said.
"They're cut off from a lot of Commonwealth government income support and things like that quite deliberately."
Safe Shelter ACT's recent report showed more people unable to speak English were showing up at their doors.
According to the report, this included one man who could only speak Farsi and was unable to connect with services for refugees and the homeless.
The federal government recently made changes to support payments for asylum seekers which would cut off nearly 80 per cent of refugees from payments, according to a report from the Refugee Council of Australia.
Mr Griffiths said it was an obvious political push by the ACT government to address the federal government's "political insensitivity" towards refugees.
The report estimated four in five asylum seekers in Australia could face homelessness because of strict federal eligibility criteria for the Status Resolution Support Services payment.
"This report estimates that as a result of the [cuts], state governments will be facing significant additional costs in health, corrections, and homelessness services," the report said.
"The total cost to the states and territories is likely to be between $80 [million] and $120 million per year."
$2 million worth of the ACT government's funding for asylum seeker support services will go towards establishing medium-term accommodation, and aims to create 12 support places by the end of this financial year.
Female asylum seekers were also at heightened risk of homelessness, according to the tender.
The remaining $2 million in funding is earmarked for services for older women, and is aimed at preventing women falling into homelessness by organising new accommodation, providing help when it comes to negotiating with landlords, and accompanying them to civil tribunals.
The government hopes to create nine support places for women by the end of the financial year.
YWCA Canberra executive director Frances Crimmins said they had no vacancies in any of their properties for women.
"We actually want to highlight that what people don't realise is older women don't look like a conventional rough sleeper," Mr Crimmins said.
Ms Crimmins said a lot of single older women were at risk of falling through the gaps, be it through their partner dying, domestic or family violence, or loss of contact with their children.
She blamed a pension that was insufficient to meet today's living costs and rising rental prices, plus women coming from a generation without a working life's worth of superannuation.
She said the country was facing a "tsunami" of older women becoming homeless, and repeated something a client had told her.
"You can't plan for tsunamis; we've known about this for decades," she said.
The ACT government was contacted for comment.
