APPLICATIONS for social housing across Victoria jumped by nearly 10% in six months, according to official data, as the situation worsens in the country’s last-ranked state for social housing as a proportion of all homes.
Homes Victoria’s latest figures show there were 63,803 applications waiting for public and community housing at the end of September.
The numbers showed an increase of 2,216, or 3.6%, in the quarter, while over six months the number of applications increased by 9.1%, with 5,344 more applications waiting for social housing or needing transfers.
Over the quarter, the priority waitlist grew by 1,235 to 36,039 applications, a 3.5% jump.
Council to Homeless Persons called for urgent investment in public and community housing in response to skyrocketing demand.
“Every day, more and more Victorians are being pushed into homelessness because the private rental market has failed and there isn’t enough social housing to provide a safety net,” Council to Homeless Persons CEO Deborah Di Natale said.
She said the situation is “urgent”.
“We need the Victorian government to commit to building at least 6,000 public and community homes each year for a decade just to meet the current demand.
“Behind each of those applications is a real person or family who is being failed by our system, and needlessly forced to suffer. That’s especially true of the more than 36,000 priority applications, who include the most vulnerable Victorians in desperate need, such as women with children escaping family violence.
“The ever-widening gap between the need for social housing and the amount of homes available is the sharpest tip of Victoria’s housing crisis. We need urgent investment before it becomes a human catastrophe.”
Social housing accounted for around 3% of all households in Victoria in 2023, data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows, the lowest in the country. Queensland and Western Australia come in at around 4% and NSW at 5%.
In 2020 the Victorian Labor government launched its $5.3 billion Big Housing Build program, which aimed to deliver 10,000 social homes. That has since been expanded to a $6.3 billion program aiming to deliver 12,000 social and affordable homes.
The Allan government yesterday touted construction being completed on a social housing development in Wangaratta close to public transport, shops, and parks.
The $18.3 million project at Templeton St Wangaratta was built in partnership with Uniting Vic. Tas, where 44 homes will replace 16 existing homes which were ageing and no longer fit for purpose.
The Allan government tipped in $13.5 million to the project.
At the beginning of summer, residents started moving into nearly 100 new social homes in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburb of Mount Waverley aimed at supporting women aged 55 and over.
More than 10,000 homes are underway or complete across the state as part of the Big Housing Build, and nearly 5,000 households are have moved the new homes. An auditor-general’s report handed down in June found that 80% of Big Housing Build homes would be completed by the end of 2026, and two years later.
