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Bikram Lama’s death could have been invisible.

It has instead prompted a reckoning.

Since Monday, when Guardian Australia published an investigation into Lama’s life and death, politicians, frontline homelessness workers, advocates and members of the public have been unified in their calls for change.

Lama died sleeping rough in Hyde Park in December last year. His body was found in a clump of bushes near the entrance to St James station tunnel, a busy thoroughfare on the edge of Sydney’s CBD. His death was not detected for up to a week.

Lama came to Australia to study, his family say, but had been deemed a non-resident by Australian authorities. Support workers say the designation effectively trapped him in homelessness.

An alliance of 48 councils from across Australia called Back Your Neighbour, chaired by Sophie Tan, the mayor of Greater Dandenong in Victoria, issued a damning statement on Friday, saying Lama’s death was evidence of “the human cost of policy-driven exclusion”.

“When people are forced to live in prolonged immigration limbo, without a clear pathway to permanency, they are effectively excluded from housing, healthcare, income support and crisis services, regardless of how long they have lived in or contributed to their communities,” Tan said.

“We offer Bikram Lama’s family and friends our sincere condolences for their loss. His circumstances are tragically familiar to people living in immigration limbo across Australian Local Government areas.”

The statement called on the federal government to, among other measures, “expand access to health care, income support and essential services to people in need”.

On Tuesday night, the City of Sydney council will be asked to pause for a minute’s silence to remember Lama.

Councillor Adam Worling, who will move the motion, said it was unfathomable that a death could occur in such circumstances.

“I just keep thinking about his mother, and I just keep thinking about my mother. And I just think, no mother should have to go through that,” he said.

“This just should not happen. State and federal governments, it just comes down to – is our taxpaying money being distributed correctly if we allow this to happen? The answer is no.”

The council will be asked to request funding from federal and state housing ministers to cover specialist homelessness services for people without residency status.

The story of Lama’s death has prompted widespread public discussion of homelessness and an outpouring of compassion for him and his family.

Erin Longbottom, the nursing unit manager of St Vincent’s homeless health service, said the response had been heartening.

Longbottom and her team had been trying to help Lama, but say he was effectively trapped by the absence of any pathway to housing or work.

“[The response] has just been absolutely amazing, actually, the compassion and thoughtfulness and care that people have shown in response,” Longbottom said.

Asked what people could do to help others in Lama’s situation, Longbottom said political pressure was needed to fix the gaps in the system.

“All this energy, if we can channel it to put pressure on the government to do something about this,” she said.

“Write to your MP, ask for change, ask for policy to be different for this cohort of people.”

Kate Colvin, the chief executive of Homelessness Australia, called on the government to extend work rights and a basic safety net to those who were left without support.

“There needs to be an extension of payments like the special benefit to provide a safety net for people left without other support, so they can still have accommodation and food, and not end up sleeping rough like Bikram,” Colvin said. “[We also need] targeted funding for homelessness services to better meet the needs of this group, who often need specialist legal support, as well as accommodation.”

Dr Cassandra Goldie, the chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, said the situation that Lama faced was the product of “decades of policies preventing the provision of basic social supports and rights to people in his circumstances”.

“His experience and fate is deeply systemic,” Goldie said. “It is also another consequence of Australia not having basic human rights protections in place, and terribly sad.”