Police found a 37-year-old woman and two babies on Saturday after they were called to Cadell Place along the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina, where many without homes have set up tents.
One of the babies had already died, while the woman and the other infant have been taken to Wagga Wagga Base Hospital.
NSW Police believe there are no suspicious circumstances.
The news has fuelled calls for action to ensure other families won't suffer a similar fate.
"Tragedies like this don't come out of nowhere," Homelessness Australia chief executive Kate Colvin said.
"They are the result of a housing system that has broken to the point that there is no safe housing or adequate support available, even for a mother with a newborn baby.
"It is completely unacceptable a family that has welcomed a new baby cannot immediately access a home, but rentals are unaffordable and social housing is unavailable."
The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council recommended a long-term approach for investment in social and affordable housing after its 2026 State of the Housing System report found rental and purchase affordability has continued to deteriorate.
In 2025, about a third of media income was required to pay the median rent, which has put lower-income renters at rising levels of rental stress and risk of homelessness, the report revealed.
It also found women, particularly single mothers and elderly single women, face particularly difficult housing conditions.
Single-parent families - 80 per cent of which are headed by women - are subject to the highest rates of housing and financial stress of any type of family, and are most likely to be in poverty after deducting housing costs.
"Right now, rising rents and the cost of basics like food and fuel are outpacing incomes, pushing more families out of housing while services remain in crisis mode," Ms Colvin said.
"Without change, we will keep seeing tragedies like this, each one heartbreaking, avoidable, and a reminder people are being failed long before crisis hits."
The federal government is expected to make changes to property investor tax breaks, like the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing, when it hands down its budget in mid-May.
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