More home borrowers are seeking help from welfare services despite record low interest rates.
Some economists are expecting the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to cut interest rates next year, as unemployment rises.
Official interest rates have been at a record low of 2.5 per cent since August 2013, but the peak body for the homeless welfare sector says this has done little to help low-income earners pay off a mortgage.
"More and more people who are actually home owners are starting to come to homelessness services for support," Homelessness Australia chief executive Glenda Stevens told AAP.
"If you're a low income earner, a mortgage is still quite a large percentage of your income even if interest rates are low."
Unemployment is expected to rise next year, as the economy slows, which would also strain welfare service providers, who help the needy with shelter and food.
Charity donors, however, continue to see sick children and medical research as more worthy causes than homelessness, says Philanthropy Australia, a group which helps wealthy individuals channel their donations.
"Something like homelessness is unfortunately not as sexy a charity or area to give to," the group's chief executive Louise Walsh said.
Ms Walsh said many wealthy Australians also were yet to discover the joy of giving to charity.
"Maybe there is this phenomenon that the more they have of everything, the more they want of those same things whether it's cars, boats, houses, holidays," she said.
The jobless rate hit a 12-year high of 6.3 per cent in November.
National Australia Bank is forecasting the unemployment rate touching 6.75 per cent in late 2015, which could lead to rate cuts in March, with another to follow a few months later.
"The economy, generally, is going to struggle through all of next year," the bank's global head of research Peter Jolly said.
"With an unemployment rate that high, and with inflation being super benign, there's really no reason to stop the RBA cutting rates again."
