More than 900 new social housing properties are needed in the south-west region just to cover the existing waiting list, new figures released to Member for South West Coast Roma Britnell show.
Ms Britnell said as of the December quarter, there were 911 applications on Housing Victoria’s waiting list.
Over half of those applications, 511, are on the priority housing list.
“Based on the December quarter figures we need a 50 per cent increase on current properties just to cover the waiting lists,” she said.
“Across the Local Government areas of Warrnambool, Moyne, Glenelg, Southern Grampians and Corangamite there are 1,878 existing social housing properties.
“965 properties are in Warrnambool, which makes up 37 per cent of stock in the Wimmera south-west area – which covers from Horsham to the coast and across to Camperdown.”
Ms Britnell said waiting lists are growing every day, especially as the private rental market dries up in the region.
“I would expect in the next lot of quarterly figures waiting lists will be even longer,” she said.
“The region is facing a massive housing crisis and it’s becoming the number one issue raised with me, I have at least one person contact me daily about housing issues.”
Ms Britnell asked the Minister for Housing Martin Foley in February to outline how many new dwellings the Andrews Government’s public housing build program would deliver in the south-west.
“The Minister hasn’t answered the specific question, only saying the number and type of houses built will become known as the program progresses,” she said.
“I’m concerned that the government has committed so much money to a project but has no idea what it’s actually going to deliver.
“We have seen repeatedly the Andrews Government have massive cost blow outs on major projects and I want to see this money being used to deliver as many social housing properties as possible.
“The Andrews Government need to get on with what they have promised and start building new social housing properties in Warrnambool and the south-west.”
