MULTI-MILLIONAIRE Therese Rein is a slightly incongruous pin-up girl for homelessness.

But Anglicare was obviously hoping the Prime Minister's wife would do for the launch of its Canberra winter appeal what Princess Di did for AIDS and landmine charities.

In scenes reminiscent of the election campaign mall mayhem, the media scrum jostled and shoppers at Woden Westfield gawped as Ms Rein urged the public to buy an extra tin of food to help those fallen on hard times to "flourish".

After a rousing rendition of Hand in Hand by the Radford College infant choir — the school Ms Rein's youngest son, Marcus, attends, one on-the-ball chorister informed us — Anglicare Canberra chief Keith Waters introduced Ms Rein.

"My wife and twins have attended, unlike Therese's husband, who is reported to have slept in this morning," Mr Waters quipped.

Ms Rein said it was surprising how many people in Canberra went to Anglicare and asked for a "bit of a hand". "That's not something to be ashamed of. This could be any one of us saying, actually, today I don't have enough food to feed my kids, today I've had to pay the electricity bill and I can't quite afford the food."

Although it seems unlikely her family is struggling to make ends meet at the Lodge, homelessness appears to be the cause celebre for Ms Rein and "her husband".

First there were those clandestine visits the PM made to shelters before the election, then Boxing Day was spent helping to dish up breakfast to the homeless at a centre in Canberra.

Not to be outdone, Ms Rein is the patron of Common Ground, which runs outreach programs, and last week joined her husband in Adelaide to launch a green paper calling for ideas to tackle the fact that 100,000 Australians are homeless each night.

Mr Waters noted that many other charitable organisations were launching their appeals at the same time, including the Salvation Army. "I would suggest you have two options — either support all of us or do it alphabetically," he joked.