Big Issue Vendor, Brisbane City. Photography: Reggie.

Advance to Zero

What is Advance to Zero?

The Advance to Zero Campaign is a groundbreaking national initiative of the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness (AAEH) that supports local collaborative efforts to end rough sleeping homelessness - one community at a time. Using a range of proven approaches from around the world communities are supported not just to address or even reduce homelessness but to end it. Communities around the world are ending homelessness, we recognise that this is possible and it starts with a shared goal, shared data, and a shared commitment.

The Advance to Zero is a campaign being run by a national collection of communities and organisations that are committed to ending all homelessness, starting with rough sleeping. In order to achieve it we will:

  • Engage, work with and train local communities to know the people who are rough sleeping in their communities by name, as well as their needs
  • Work with communities to produce quality data to track progress in successfully housing people
  • Line up supply of housing and match people to services they require, if needed
  • Move people into housing and support them to stay housed
  • Ensure rough sleeping homelessness is rare, brief and a non-recurring experience for individuals and families.

The Advance to Zero (AtoZ) Campaign utilises the following methodology that has been developed over many years by the various partners of the AAEH across Australia and is a blend of what is working from efforts around the world including work by Community Solutions International, the Institute of Global Homelessness, OrgCode and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness as well as the many organisations and campaigns associated with the AAEH. The following is what the AAEH has, so far determined needs to be incorporated into efforts to implement this methodology in Australia.

AtoZ Strategy


Get Involved

More information about some of the existing communities we are working with can be found here, and if you are interested in getting involved get in touch with us, or visit our training and advisory page to find out how we can help.

Key AtoZ Resources

Memos to the Movement

Periodically we send out memos to the Advance to Zero Community about our shared efforts to end homelessness in Australia and the development of tools, resources and the methodology. You can find the most recent memos below:

Briefing Documents