In one corner of a campground at the back of a Tasmanian north west coast pub sits a well-used tent. An old Mitsubishi Pajero lies in front of the dwelling like a guard dog, protecting its owner from prying eyes.

The tent has been pitched using screwdrivers instead of tent pegs. On one side, the owner has strung up an old military jacket to catch rain water, funnel it through the hood and into a tank for drinking and washing.

The man who calls that place home, Richard Joyce, is friendly and polite, apologising for the wet ground and lack of seating. He has had little company of late, and has no need for a second chair.

The 30-year-old is not quite sure how long he's been living at Railton - it's not easy to keep track of time when you're homeless - but he knows it's been at least a month.

He said that was a record for him, having spent about a decade "hopscotching" around the state armed with nothing but a tent, his father's old car, and a growing feeling of "invisibility".

"There's a few of us around," he said.

"I know a guy in Burnie, people drive straight past him where he sleeps all the time and they don't even know he's there. We like to go bush, too.

"It's like we're people just living in the shadows. You do feel a bit invisible."

Mr Joyce has been living alone since the death of his father sometime last year from cancer.

The two slept rough for years, but always had each other. Mr Joyce glowed with pride as he talked about his father's old camera equipment, his tools and military gear, much of which he carries around with him still.

"Me and dad was close," he said, fondly.

"I had to sell some of my stuff to pay for a cremation. Even my generator. I've still got my solar panel to charge my phone.

"People say, 'you've got the Pajero, why don't you sell it?' But it's one of the last things I have from my dad, I'll never part with it."

Mr Joyce admits to having spent a "few months" at high school before dropping out, having never learnt to read or write.

He lives for the most part on a disability pension, which he "rations out" to pay camping fees, car maintenance and food.

"I work odd jobs, but it's hard to get a job now because everyone wants you to have a vaccine," he said.

"People ask me to get vaccinated, but I can't read so I can't book one. I go to pharmacies but they tell me I need to book."

Thanks to the kindness of one of the current owners of the Railton Hotel, Mr Joyce now holds a learner licence, but sticks to private areas as he has no one to supervise him.

If one thing is clear, Mr Joyce is tired of living rough. He dreams of a place of his own, "a little unit maybe", he said. His life is filled with constant moving around as he outstays his welcome, the monotony of endless free time with no one to see and nothing to do.

"You wake up and you feel tired," he said.

"I try and go fishing to catch myself a feed, and work on the car a bit."

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Mr Joyce said he had about a week before he would need to move on from his current spot, as the hotel had been leased to new publicans who had chosen to continue short stays, but not to let people live there.

"I just want a place of my own," Mr Joyce said.

"I'm on the waiting list. I called (the Department of) Housing, and they said they would call me when they've got somewhere, but they never call."

This is perhaps not particularly surprising in the current climate.

Noel Mundy is the general manager of housing and community services for Anglicare, one of Tasmania's largest providers of public and emergency housing.

He said there was about 4000 people on the waiting list for public housing, some of whom were rough sleepers.

The state government has plans to build about 1500 new social houses by 2023, including 283 in the North-West.

Lara Alexander is the chief executive officer of the St Vincent de Paul Society, a not-for-profit which is one of Tasmania's main providers of housing and emergency relief.

She said the lack of affordable housing in Tasmania and the COVID-19 situation were "certainly not helping the situation" for those who were either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

Unfortunately, she added, tackling homelessness - particularly in cases like Richard Joyce's - is not as easy as simply providing a house.

"We need to start thinking of homelessness as a multifaceted issue," Mrs Alexander said.

"We define that situation as one word, it's actually made of so many aspects."

After years of observation and study, Mrs Alexander believes a lot of people are set on a particular "road" from as early as childhood, which often determines whether they are able to get a job, have good health and ultimately live in stability.

"90 per cent of the people who come to us have had a particular event in their life that they did not recognise the magnitude at the time," she explained.

"Later in life they faced something and they have spiralled out of control, entered into debt, addiction, depression.

"Sometimes these anxieties and mental health are so deep, so complex, they do not find going back to a life with a roof over their head immediately fixes those issues.

"Anybody can become homeless, a child is not born with the homeless stamp on them."

Mrs Alexander said stories like Mr Joyce's were common, where people felt they needed to hide away from society.

"Deep down, people in Richard's situation feel that society is probably judging them," she said.

"It's important for us as service providers to recognise that somebody like Richard is not coming through the door just for a food voucher, they need so much more.

"It's about making them comfortable, they have lost that trust in society. We have a talk, we say, 'look mate, is there anything we can help you with?'."

Mr Joyce has plenty of ideas when it comes to providing housing.

"All those empty shops and factories, they should open them up and let people sleep there, run soup kitchens," he said.

"I'm not God I guess, it'd be good if I was."

Mrs Alexander has also had plenty of time to think.

"We can do it, Tasmania is in a great position to lead the way because we're so small," she asserted.

"The service providers who have been running around during these tough times trying to maintain their programs ... I think there is a lot of fatigue, and that we should be working together as much possible.

"The other thing you've got here in Australia is the ideal of land ownership - governments think 'spread, spread, spread' when it comes to housing. We would be using the same land to create buildings that house families and surround them with services, create a community garden, that type of thing.

"That takes pressure off the environment and off the government to release more land.

"But again, collaboration has to happen with councils, with the state government. It's not going to get easier, it's going to get harder. And it takes a really long time to fix a complex issue.

"But we have to be brave and embrace different solutions if we want to see change."