The federal member for Indi wants "live" solutions to the region's housing crisis - and she's intent on getting them.

"What we have now; we've been talking about for months," she says.

"The local economy is being held back by the acute housing shortage while our most vulnerable people are the most immediate concern. We need to get very creative."

It's going to take local councils and stakeholders, industry groups, state and federal goverments ... and that's just for starters, Dr Haines says.

She's even had the Master Builders Association keen to come to the table to help.

"It's not simple, or we would have fixed it by now," Dr Haines admits.

She recently met with federal housing minister Michael Sukkar who agreed to consider proposals from North East local governments and stakeholders to address the region's housing affordability crisis.

"Mr Sukkar confirmed the crisis was not confined to North East Victoria and there was a strain on regional housing across the country" Dr Haines says.

"The Federal Government is part of the fix.

"However, the measures in the Budget were almost solely focused on providing access to mortgage finance.

"There was nearly nothing to address lack of housing supply, the cause of the problem we are experiencing."

While the minister stopped short of the Federal Goverment building housing stock itself, Dr Haines says it's open to exploring a local government-led proposal.

To that end she will meet with the nine Indi councils next month to workshop on-the-ground solutions - ones that will stick.

"The last thing I want to do is throw ideas out there and have nothing land," she says.

"In a recent community survey in the Alpine Shire, affordable and available housing was the number one issue."

Dr Haines acknowledges the housing crisis is an unexpected consequence of the pandemic and the lack of affordable and suitable housing has had ripple effects across the economy.

"For decades, the approach to regional development has been 'build it and they will come'," she says.

"Well, they've come, and we just haven't built it.

"Less than 0.5 per cent of properties are available to rent in North East Victoria right now.

"This is the lowest level since records began."

In a country as wealthy as Australia, Dr Haines says the level of homelessness is "not OK".

In recent discussions with Uniting Care Wodonga, she was told by staff that it was once considered a "massive failure" and "deeply unacceptable" to offer swags or tents to people facing homelessness.

Now sometimes that's the only thing overwhelmed support services can do.

Dr Haines says a whole-of-community forum on the Border might be one approach to address the crisis in new ways.

"We need to provide opportunities for great ideas to collide," she says.

"I'm prepared to have my sleeves rolled up with all our Border MPs.

"What's important when we think about homelessness more broadly is often it's the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff ... when we are at the emergency housing end."

It's one of the reasons Dr Haines was "really disappointed" to see there was nothing in last week's Victorian budget for Wodonga's youth foyer project.

Wodonga TAFE has helped lead the charge for a project that would see 40 self-contained units built for vulnerable youth as part of a collaboration with Beyond Housing, Junction Support Services, Yes Unlimited and the Border's two councils.

Dr Haines says we "have to get behind" this project particularly considering Shepparton's youth foyer is seeing "fantastic results".

"We know youth at risk of homelessness are less likely to engage in training or education," she says.

"A young person's chance of getting a good education is inhibited by poor social circumstances and they are at greater risk of substance abuse, poor mental health and unemployment.

"Part of the reason projects like this slip through the funding cracks is ... everyone thinks everyone else should fund it.

"Does it fall under health, education and training, youth services or housing ... when in fact it's all of these.

"This project is really important for our region.

"Yes, it's just one piece of a bigger problem but we need to bring forward these ideas to pitch to all levels of government."