Noelene Garlett, a Noongar champion who stood up for the rights of homeless people, passed away earlier this month aged 62, having recently suffered from a stroke.

Ms Garlett was a resident at Perth Tent City before securing public housing after a long campaign, where she lived since.

While part of the Tent City protest movement, Ms Garlett worked hard as part of the campaign to secure more immediate accommodation for homeless people (Boorloo Bidee Mia) and longer term investment in public housing (a record $2.6 billion investment in WA's 2021 Budget).

Ms Garlett continued to speak out for the homeless after securing a place to call her own, and recently worked as a lived experience consultant for Shelter WA.

In a 2022 interview, outside a WA government inquiry into homelessness, Ms Garlett told National Indigenous Times: "They need to work with us and not look down on us."

Noelene suffered from pneumonia in 2020. In a 2021 interview she said: "When they figured out I didn't have COVID… they sent me back to my tent. It was at tent city. Now I have emphysema, they found a house for me. After all these years they gave me a house I can die in."

Ms Garlett's cousin, Kellie Garlett, has organised a gofundme to help pay for Noelene's funeral this Friday.

Noelene daughter, Doreen Garlett, told National Indigenous Times she would "dearly miss" her late mother.

"I want her to be remembered as a beautiful mum," she said.

"I understood, her being homeless, she had her children as well and she made sure her children were safe by getting us into care, because she lived a rough life.

"She was a good mum. I used to meet with her in town, in the city, I would come and meet her growing up when I was in care, and as an adult.

"The family I was with kept use engaged with one another when I was young. I will dearly miss her."

Doreen said she was grateful for her mother's efforts to protect her children from homelessness.

Stop Evicting Families campaigner Jesse Noakes, who knew Ms Garlett for five years, said she was "a housing campaigner and an advocate who helped fight for real outcomes from the government, including billions of dollars for more public housing when she stood up and shared her story in the media, at protests and at Parliament".

Mr Noakes acknowledged Noelene's determination to make the world a better and fairer place, "despite all the pressures and stresses of life on the streets".

He also noted Ms Garlett's work speaking about the death of homeless people in the streets of Perth, and on the severe long-term impact homelessness has on people's health.

"She led protests at Parliament and spoke at press conferences in Forrest Place. The last interview I helped her organise last year was back at the original site of tent city to speak about the impact of deaths due to homelessness - I am sure that homelessness had a very serious impact on her own health, as she always said it did," he said.

He said Ms Garlett never stopped campaigning.

"She was a powerful and determined voice for her people who always stood up to speak truth to the government who have taken so much from Aboriginal families, and right to the end she was a fighter," he said.

"I will miss her but I am grateful for having known her and worked with her."

Noelene's cousin, Alana Garlett, died homeless in June, 2021, sparking calls for major reforms to end rough sleeping and protect the state's most vulnerable people.

Noongar man Anselm Taylor, who also campaigned to end homelessness, died of a heart attack in November 2021. He had recently secured housing, but had spent years homeless.

Research by Associate Professor Lisa Wood of the University of Western Australia's Home 2 Health team has shown homelessness has a severe long-term impact on health and life expectancy, including a three-decade life expectancy deficit.

Prof. Wood's research published early last year found that 107 people died homeless on Perth streets in 2022, meaning that "more than 200 people (had) died due to homelessness in Perth since the start of the pandemic".

Professor Wood's latest work was published in the British Medical Journal last month.