WESTERN Australia’s Cook government has lifted social housing eligibility limits to ensure recipients of Commonwealth benefits who receive no other income can access the housing.
Social housing income eligibility limits have increased by $9 for single-income households and $14 for dual-income households, in line with rising income support payments. The increase to income eligibility limits affects both public housing and community housing where public housing income eligibility limits are used.
The current state government has now lifted eligibility limits for social housing five times as the state grapples with a surge in people being assisted by homelessness services. The previous government did not increase social housing income eligibility once in its eight years in power.
“Our government continues to do everything it can to ensure the most vulnerable in the community have access to safe, affordable and sustainable housing,” Housing Minister John Carey said.
The Cook government announced yesterday that its $2.6 billion investment in housing and homelessness measures has reached a milestone of 2,000 social homes to the state’s public housing stock, with more than 1,000 social homes currently under contract or construction.
It has committed to the delivery of around 4,000 social dwellings along with refurbishments and maintenance work to many thousands more.
Last week the state government announced that up to $50 million in grants will be made available for registered community housing providers under a call for submissions process aimed at boosting regional social and community housing supply. The public housing waitlist in Kimberley region had blown out to an average of 226 weeks, or four years and four months, according to numbers supplied to Western Australia’s Parliament in September. Those on the state’s priority list need to wait 118 weeks, or two years and three months.
That followed the Albanese and Cook governments partnering up to deliver 219 new homes on Pier Street in the Perth CBD, with 66 apartments of those to be new social rental homes and 44 to be affordable rental homes. They have also committed more than $8 million to deliver 16 new social housing dwellings in southern Perth’s Coolbellup for seniors on the public housing waitlist.
