The report by Homelessness Australia and Impact Economics makes an "urgent" call to the government to beef up support for frontline services.
"The housing crisis has just become an absolute housing emergency and homelessness support services are just buckling under pressure," Homelessness Australia CEO Kate Colvin said.
Because services are so under pressure, Ms Colvin said, they had been unable to identify how many people are being turned away.
To get a better sense of the problem, Impact Economics monitored 23 specialist homeless services for two weeks in September.
It found families with children seeking emergency accommodation were not provided help about one in every five days, while people without kids were turned away every one in two days.
Unaccompanied minors were turned away one in every nine days, according to the think tank.
Deciding who received a bed each night was a distressing situation for support workers, Ms Colvin said.
"Do you say yes to the mum with two small kids who has no where to go that night, or to another mum who has a car?" she said.
"And then there's a young guy only 20 years old who has run away for a violent home, who do they say no to in that situation?Â
The authors hope the report homelessness encourages fast action from the government. (Dave Hunt/AAP PHOTOS)
"Everyone need safe accommodation, but they have to say no."
For people on the brink of homelessness over the two-week period, there were 200 hours where services had to close their doors, 325 hours of unanswered phone calls, and 666 urgent emails staff could not reply to.
"Cost-of-living increases always hurt those on lower incomes the most - and these figures highlight the extent of hardship, said report author and Impact Economics principal Angela Jackson.
Rent assistance and an increased supply of social and affordable housing are well documented solutions to the housing crisis, she said.
But in the short term, frontline services need more funding to look after people who could not wait for long-term answers, Dr Jackson said.
The reports estimated that in 2022 there were between 2.7 million and 3.2 million Australians at risk of homelessness, a 63 per cent increase from those at risk between 2016 and 2022.
Ms Colvin said a lot of people were only one "negative shock" away from homelessness.
"You have the vulnerability of a person because they have risk factors like a low income, or face discrimination, then the negative shock is the life event that happens like losing a job, experiencing family violence, or you're discharged from hospital," she said.
The authors hope the report encourages the federal government to act as fast as it can.
"The government has the midyear budget coming up in December, this should be a priority," Ms Colvin said.
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