The society wants social justice issues high on the agenda as the state heads to the polls next month.

Launching its Social Justice Statement on Monday, the society has highlighted three areas of concern - housing affordability, rising energy costs and asylum seekers and refugees.

In 2014 the society's Wollongong Central Council, which included the areas of the Southern Highlands and Campbelltown, as well as the Illawarra, has helped more than 46,000 people with food vouchers, rental assistance, accommodation, medical expenses, and material aid, as well as providing more than $420,000 worth of energy assistance payments.

Denis Walsh, Wollongong Central Council president, said ordinary families were struggling to keep their heads above water.

"It's very sobering that people can't pay their bills, put food on the table or pay their rent," Mr Walsh said.

"We need to ensure that we use our grassroots network to keep people from falling deeper into despair."

He urged all regional politicians to stand up and explain their party's policies.

He added that the society, with its daily contact with the needy, was in a unique position to be able to help determine the social justice agenda.

In NSW each day, 600 people are helped by the society either in their homes, nursing homes, hospitals, prisons or in detention centres.

The Social Justice Statement says there is an urgent need in the availability of affordable housing, as well as vast improvements needed to the NSW energy concessions scheme. The society has also called for children from detention centres to be removed immediately and placed in community arrangements.

It believed that housing costs are "arguably the single biggest driver of poverty and disadvantage in Australia".

Housing costs have risen at twice the rate of inflation over the past decade, with NSW having the highest rate of low-income households in rental stress.

The society said there was an increasing number of families accruing large debts because of energy costs.