Fear funding change may hit homeless

HOMELESSNESS could get a lot worse if Treasurer Scott Morrison “tampers” with any of the $1.3 billion of federal funding that keeps public and community housing afloat, according to Council to Homeless Persons CEO Jenny Smith.

Ms Smith made the prediction after Department of Human Services data revealed rental affordability in Frankston had hit historic lows.

“The National Affordability Agreement on Housing resources are very busy housing more than 80,000 of Victoria’s lowest income households in public and community housing,” she said.

“They also provide two-thirds of our homelessness support services which support more over 100,000 Victorians each year.

“Our concern is that this already very busy funding will be redirected to other programs, like home ownership subsidies.

“Redirecting this money would threaten the security of those public and community housing tenancies, creating the prospect of a tsunami of homelessness in Victoria.”

December quarter figures show private rental affordability is on a steady decline in Frankston as the housing affordability ‘crisis’ creeps to the outer suburbs.

“Housing affordability is finally getting the spotlight on the political stage, and now we need the federal government to step up and release a national plan outlining how it will tackle the housing affordability and homelessness crisis,” Ms Smith said.

“We want to see a range of measures that help people on low incomes to keep a roof over their head, but, critically, we want to see federal funding for public housing maintained and increased.”

“The [$1.3 million] keeps homelessness at bay for 64,000 public housing households who can’t afford private rental and it also funds most of our homelessness services,” she said.

“Increasing supply is only a small part of the answer to improving affordability; we must also ensure that some of that new supply is targeted at low-income earners.

“People think that if you move to a regional area, that you’ll be able to find cheaper rent. But as the housing crisis has taken hold, people on low incomes have fewer places they can afford to live.”

First published in the Frankston Times – 27 March 2017