Friday is market day at the Colac Salvos.

People stream out of the town's community centre in south-west Victoria laden with shopping bags full of free groceries that will feed their families for a week.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 kilograms of groceries go out each Friday — enough food and essentials to sustain about 100 households.

On the nature strip outside, Michael Tiller feeds his tiny dog, Cody, and chats to people as they leave.

Today, he's picking up some free camping gear donated by a good Samaritan.

The gift will be a relief through the hot summer ahead and a lifesaver come winter. 

"I've slept on benches, I slept at the train station for a while, we've slept on the concrete with just a canvas tarp over us," Michael said.

The donated camping gear is part of a new Colac Salvos project called Otway TentCare. 

The idea is to collect donated old tents, swags and mattresses, spruce them up, and get experts to fix any rips, zips or broken poles. 

The tents are then given to people in need who can't access social housing or who could spend a decade on a waiting list — people like Michael. 

He's been homeless and sleeping rough for almost two years.

As a man in his 50s who recently faced court, Michael's at the bottom of the state government's lengthy social housing priority list.

The housing department says that at last count there were 262 priority applications for social housing in the Colac region and 133 registers of interest for non-priority applicants.

Inside the Colac Salvos, that list comes to life with a hundred harrowing stories.

To feel normal for the day

The centre brims with people who cannot afford rent, baby formula, a coin-operated laundry or a haircut, people struggling with mental illness and poverty, those living with a disability, others who cannot feed their families or pay their mortgages, and single people just trying to survive.

Yet somehow, the place is buzzing, cheerful.

Jolly music plays as visitors settle into couches for a cuppa and a chat, sharing a smile and a story.

It's someone's birthday, so there is a cake and a song, and too many plates of homemade rum balls and sweet slices.

Out the back, there's a free commercial laundry where a woman washes and dries several loads of clothes, saving about $50.

"It just all adds up, especially this time of year, all the bills come in, rego, everything," she said.

"But you can see it in people's eyes here, they feel like they're not alone. 

"They come here for morale — just to feel normal for the day."

Out in the dining room, retired hairdresser Barb Maloney has set up a free hair salon where people book in for a 20-minute trim.

"If they've been having a really bad time of it, just sitting getting a haircut, having a chat, just makes all the difference," Barb said.

"It gives them a big boost to their self-esteem, almost like a new lease on life."

Sometimes there are tears, but Barb says the salon chair is a safe space.

Towards the end of the day, a young mum with a wailing newborn rushes into the ballyhoo and is ushered into a back storeroom where shelves are stacked high with brand new baby products. 

Five minutes later, she leaves with more than she needs in a flurry of thanks.

It's people like these — vulnerable mothers with babies or children, some of whom are running from violence — whose applications for housing sit on a long list above Michael's.

Wind, frost and rain

After two years of sleeping rough, Michael has learned that if he has a tent, he can survive, even through a bitter Colac winter. 

His first tent lasted a year, but a severe storm ripped the fabric and bent the poles.

Cody helps Michael sleep at night.

His cherished dog is a mostly blind-and-deaf, 18-year-old Japanese Spitz that came into Michael's life five years ago when he still rented a flat and still had his job of 30 years revegetating native bushland.

But two years ago, he lost his job and then his home, and wound up in court pleading guilty to an unlawful assault charge after a violent altercation with his stepfather.

He had never been in trouble like this before, but his mistakes destroyed every safety net he had.

These days, it's a matter of survival, and a tent is critical.

"But it's more than protection — it's your own space.

"Sometimes you want to hide from the rest of the world. You don't want to know about everyone else with their perfect lives." 

Young, disabled and homeless

Michael is the second of Colac's homeless to receive camping gear via Otway TentCare.

Colac disability worker Susan Perkins pitched the idea to the Salvos after seeing it work for others.

"One of my young people was homeless," Susan said.

"His last tent ripped so he was couch surfing, had nowhere to put anything, so he didn't have any belongings, he'd lost it all.

"I put the word out on the local Facebook page and we got more [tents] than we needed. 

"So I thought, let's see what we can do with it."

The Salvos did their own tent drive and received more than 25 donations — a mix of old swags, brand new tents and mattresses — but not all were salvageable. 

Peter Gavan, the owner of local business Blue Sky Outdoor, now leads a team of volunteers, including local Scouts and Venturers, who fix and clean the tents for re-distribution.

Who are the unhousable?

Salvos' Josiah Van Niekerk says the number of homeless people in Colac is increasing as the cost-of-living crisis and the housing shortage worsen.  

He estimates there are between 30 and 50 people, mostly men, sleeping rough in the region. 

"The people that are homeless and sleeping rough that we see, most times won't qualify for departmental housing," Josiah said. 

"It can be because of volatile behaviour, a history with police, substance abuse or they've burnt their bridges, been forcibly removed from premises."

But, he says, the Salvos help "everyone, no questions asked".

"Sometimes people that are in really fragile parts of their life can be quite volatile, and it can make it unsafe for other people," he said.

"We'll still be able to provide for them, but they might not be able to come in [to the centre]."

While a tent is a temporary solution, Josiah says it is a step in the right direction.

He hopes to widen the reach of Otway TentCare across western Victoria.

Josiah says that once people have shelter, even just a tent, they might then be able to focus on higher needs, like getting counselling and repairing relationships.

"It's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Let's start with the first ones — let's get them off the bench, let's get some food in their belly.