But that is just those who were able to be counted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Census night in 2016.

The real figure is likely much higher.

Many more are the hidden homeless, they are couch surfing with friends and family until they outlive their welcome, or they are sleeping in cars or in parks away from judging eyes.

The fact that in this day and age there are still people having to shiver through each winter without shelter, is frankly, a shameful indictment on society and how we treat those who have fallen through its cracks.

National Homelessness Week August 4-10 is a chance to take stock of just how bad the problem has become, but also an opportunity to forge a new path forward, a path of empathy and compassion, a path of housing and hope.

It needs all levels of government, corporates, not-for-profits, philanthropists, and visionaries coming together to clean it up.

This week should serve as a wake-up call to all of us.

Vinnies are committed to saving as many families as possible from the perils of life on the street, housing more than 1200 people in the last year, but the problem is too big for us and other not-for-profits to confront alone.

The fact is there are a myriad of factors that only a coordinated approach will solve.

There is an extreme lack of social and affordable housing, rising costs of living, unsecure and unstable work, growing underemployment, a sluggish economy and a social safety net in Newstart which hasn't seen a rise in 27 years and remains woefully inadequate.

The results of which mean thousands of Queenslanders don't have a home, including 3,372 children under 12.

As a father I find that figure incredibly hard to stomach, and inexcusable.

Homelessness is a growing emergency we must address now, or see it spiral out of our control, evidenced by the fact that 190,000 Queensland households are in rental stress, putting them just two pay days or significant life events away from life on the street.

We are doing what we can, but we need help, and I challenge everyone in government, the private sector and the wider community to take five minutes and consider if that homeless person you walked past was your mother or father, your son or daughter, would you help them?

Kevin Mercer,

CEO

St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland

Try to imagine the madness of taxpayers proclaiming their tax payments were salary for employees of the Tax Office. And therefore those employees are now in a higher tax bracket and must pay more tax themselves.

In North Queensland, former employees of Clive Palmer's nickel refinery are in exactly this situation.

When the refinery went down, their super vanished. That money belonged to the workers, not to Palmer, but he refused to hand it over. The liquidators have been trying to get this money, and he has fought them every inch of the way. Just before the election he set up a fund to give his former employees a smidgen of what they are owed -- but called it a salary payment. And now these unemployed people find that they are facing enormous amounts of extra tax.

So what's in a name? Who is it who decides what's what where money is concerned? Would the nickel refinery workers be justified in telling the Tax Office this smidgen of a money was a Lotto prize?

When will workers' super get the protection it should have, so that workers will always get what belongs to them alone? Memo to Hanson, Katter, Joyce, Cory Bernardi, the Greens and the CFMEU -- there's an opportunity for you all here.

Grant Agnew, Coopers Plains