Each week up to seven Canberrans walk through the doors of Havelock House looking for a place to stay that night.
Chief executive Kylie Maidens said it was distressing to staff to have to turn them away during the depths of winter.
"We had a gentleman come here ... He had his medical bracelet on his wrist. He needed accommodation. We said, 'Mate, sorry, we don't do crisis. Have you tried Ainslie Village? Have you tried McKillop [House]?' He said, 'No.'
"He was very distressed. He walked out of our building and threw himself in front of the tram because going back to hospital, getting a warm bed, a meal, and a good night's sleep by hurting himself was more important than sleeping on the street."
Some people need a place to stay for a hot meal, a good sleep and a shower before they go on their way.
Mrs Maidens wants to be able to provide this service to people in their time of crisis so they can work with a case manager to find stable housing.
Havelock Housing has told five students living in one of the units occupied by the Canberra Student Co-operative Housing to move into vacant rooms in its other four units. The unit would then be used for temporary crisis accommodation.
The student co-op has so far dug in. The students say they want to stay in all five units, which offer the most affordable student accommodation in Canberra.
The student occupants were told they had 21 days from July 14 to relocate to the vacant rooms. The deadline to move out is on August 4.
"They've got vacancies. We're not kicking them out," Mrs Maidens said.
"Their occupancy agreement ... that they've signed says that Havelock has the right to relocate tenants where they see fit, based on the need. The need is we need more crisis accommodation."
One of the residents who has been told to relocate, Remi Prica, said the students protested outside Housing ACT, the owner of the property, on Wednesday afternoon with the aim of having the relocation notices revoked.
"We're calling on them to fund housing better because seven rooms aren't going to fix the homelessness crisis," they said.
"There are over 500 homes in the ACT public housing homes that are empty. We're calling for them to be filled before displacing students in need."
Prica said the co-op had difficulty filling the rooms because of maintenance problems, such as mould. They said heating had recently been fixed in one of the units.
Mrs Maidens said there were no maintenance work orders for the co-op's units.
"There's zero work orders for the student units at the moment. So if there's something wrong, we're not aware of it," she said.
"I'm not trying to be difficult with the students. I'm really not. I'm trying to balance the need of the community with the vacancies that the students have."
She said a fire "gutted" the inside of another unit earlier this year which used to house seven residents. The unit is still unsafe and Havelock is waiting for Housing ACT to repair it.
Mrs Maidens said the co-op unit on the Northbourne Avenue side was selected to be turned into crisis accommodation because it would mean those students could move into the other four co-op units located next to each other on the Moore Street side of the property.
"It's literally 80 metres. It's on the other side of the building. They're still over with the co-op and with other tenants that are in that co-op."
She said one of the co-op directors attended a meeting on July 14 but Havelock has not received a response to its proposed collaboration agreement. She said the students had a right to protest and to free speech.
"We would be more than happy to sit in a room with the directors and talk through this and nut it out and leave that room with everyone being very happy and on the same page. I welcome that."
