People are being forced to sleep in their cars because they can’t find a home.

Recently, I heard about a group of them asking for a car park to open at night so they could park safely and access toilets. Then, another story about a young woman with a newborn baby “living” in her car – but it could hardly be called living.

There are families languishing in motels for months on end – at least they have shelter, but that’s far from ideal for their children. Homelessness services in the regions are giving out tents and swags so fast they have run out of them.

People are no longer holidaying in caravan parks, they are living in them for as long as they are allowed as the only housing option they can get. Most of these people have no hope of finding a home any time soon.

I was asked the other day if there was any hope in sight, will the housing crisis end anytime soon? Unfortunately, I had to answer no; there are too many delays and problems to overcome before we can achieve the supply of housing we need today, much less into the future.

The way we build housing in Australia is slow and expensive. The bricks and mortar and the land we build on are both expensive, and a growing proportion of the population is forever locked out of home ownership. Materials and labour shortages are causing huge delays and builders are going broke. We have the lowest vacancy rate in the private rental market we’ve had for a decade and a lack of rental affordability has been a problem for low income households for many years. The need for social housing greatly outweighs supply.

Increasing the supply of public housing is critical, there will always be people who need it. But one of the only other solutions I can see is to create an alternative housing product at a much lower price than is currently available. As well as a cheaper houses, faster solutions are desperately needed.

Different ways of building and using land that can quickly create new supply are needed immediately. Modular dwellings must be in the mix because they can be built more quickly. After the World War II we built “snail houses”: imported from England in kit form, they came with do-it-yourself instructions for unskilled labour. By the late 1950’s there were forty homes being supplied every week – imagine the impact that would have today!

The state government recently held an expression of interest process to build small clusters of modular dwellings and that is a good first step towards the innovation we need.

A household with a yearly income of $30,000 or less, as a first home-owner without any other debt, could potentially borrow (and afford to repay) up to $200,000 to purchase a home with assistance from Homestart Finance. But there is nothing anywhere near this price in the market. If we could create a home ownership product at this lower price, we could start getting people housed in the numbers we need to.

One of the ways to save on costs is not to sell the land with the dwellings, by building small clusters of housing and taking advantage of existing legal structures like retirement villages and residential parks.

Disruption to traditional ways of building would likely not be popular with building companies, but there is a huge population of people locked out of home ownership that could create a much bigger market. There are incentives for the state government to enable this kind of home ownership opportunity. Housing people properly, in a user pays model, at scale would save governments money and increase their revenue through stamp duty.

Recent state government housing announcements are welcome including increasing the supply of public housing and preventing sales, releasing land to assist with future supply and a review of tenancy legislation. There is a raft of proposed housing measures at the federal government level too, and I look forward to the impact they will have on South Australia. These are the first actions we have seen to improve the housing space for many years.

There is a critical time lag however, between the planned dwellings and the immediate housing crisis. All options should be on the table, if they can positively and quickly affect the supply of housing that South Australians need and can afford, today and into the future.

Dr Alice Clark is executive director of Shelter SA