Housing in G21 – regional taskforce

The G21 region is growing, which means the demand for housing is growing too.

The cost of buying or renting a house is increasing at a much higher rate that increases in incomes.

This broadening gap is driving housing insecurity and homelessness.

G21 is working with all five councils, housing agencies, state government, developers and philanthropists to understand the impact of this widening gap:

The Victorian Government is aware of rising housing costs and is implementing the Big Housing Build – an ambitious plan to spend $5.3 billion on 12,000 subsidised housing properties within four years. To find out more about this major initiative go the Homes Victoria website at: https://www.vic.gov.au/homes-victoria

Homes Victoria are focussing on ‘social housing’ – which is subsidised to ensure that households pay no more than 30% of their income on rent. This subsidised social housing is provided for households on very modest income because this income level is often not enough to pay for full private rental. In some areas of our region private rental properties are both unaffordable and in very short supply, almost unavailable.

People living on very modest income may be living on benefits (such as a Disability Benefit or Department of Veterans Affairs Pension) or work in low paid employment, with limited hours of work available.

The Housing in G21 Taskforce has purchased data which reveals the demand for subsidised housing as an alternative to high cost private rental. There is a problem in each council area:

ABS census data 2016.

This data indicates that we need to build around 6,000 new homes just to meet the needs of people currently renting, on very modest income, and paying more than 30% of that income on private rent. These are families and individuals already living in our community.

As a community, we need to build many more than 6,000 homes to meet the needs of our rapidly growing population. We also need to focus on housing that is affordable for people who are working and earning money but are not able to afford the extremely high costs of private rental in many areas across the region.

This form of housing is called ‘key worker housing’ – some jobs are critical to our economy and yet people employed in these jobs can no longer afford to live near where they work. There is a shortfall of hundreds of key worker homes.

To explore detailed data relating to housing affordability in both the rental and purchasing market click here https://housing.id.com.au/g21-region

Each council in the region has published statements regarding the need for additional subsidised social housing and support services for tenants:

• City of Greater Geelong
• Colac Otway Shire
• Golden Plains Shire
• Borough of Queenscliffe
• Surf Coast Shire

G21 acknowledges the commitment of Sirovilla, which has secured funding from the Percy Baxter Trust, the Anthony Costa Foundation and Geelong Community Foundation to make this project possible.

The project has developed some useful resources: