Premier Steven Marshall to release ten-year, $83m plan to reset Aboriginal housing

A $10m Indigenous Elders Village will be built at a culturally significant site as part of a 10-year Aboriginal housing strategy that includes encouraging home ownership.

A $10 million Indigenous elders village will be built at a culturally significant site in the southern suburbs as part of a 10-year Aboriginal housing strategy designed to overcome a lack of safe, secure and affordable properties.

Premier Steven Marshall will on Thursday unveil the 14-point plan – backed by more than $83 million in funding over five years – to mark the start of National Reconciliation Week.

The strategy’s priorities include aiming to increase home ownership among Indigenous South Australians by 10 per cent and creating opportunities for Aboriginal businesses to work on housing projects.

Home ownership would be promoted by partnering with private financial institutions, HomeStart Finance and Indigenous Business Australia to explore innovative products and models.

The elders village, backed by $4 million in state funding, will be built close to Warriparinga, a culturally significant site near the Sturt River, at Bedford Park.

Built and managed by Aboriginal groups, it will have 40 individual homes for elders at risk of homelessness.

Mr Marshall, who is also Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Minister, billed the strategy as the first in the state to specifically target Indigenous people and said it “hits the reset button on the Aboriginal housing system”.

“Ultimately, we want to help deliver real change for Aboriginal South Australians and real outcomes for Aboriginal people,” he said.

“Empowering Aboriginal South Australians by supporting them into home ownership, ensuring they have access to safe and secure housing and giving them a greater voice in determining their housing future is all crucial to helping them reach their housing aspirations.”

Concept images of planned $10m Aboriginal Elders Village at Bedford Park, part of a ten-year South Australian Aboriginal Housing Strategy.

The strategy also includes:

REMOTE-AREA housing maintenance funding of $34 million over five years;

REPLACING houses in remote areas, with funding of $28.4 million over six years;

SOCIAL and affordable housing – $17 million in funding over six years, and;

TARGETS to tackle homelessness and boost housing embedded “across mainstream government policies”.

The 33-page strategy was spearheaded by the SA Housing Authority’s head of Aboriginal housing, Erin Woolford, a Kuyani-Arrernte woman. It says many Aboriginal people in SA cannot access safe, secure and affordable housing.

“Services are not culturally informed or responsive and there are few opportunities for Aboriginal peoples to participate in the housing sector economy through employment or business development,” it says.

SA has 34,184 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, according to the 2016 census, of whom 10.2 per cent own their home outright, 25.2 per cent own their home with a mortgage, 30.3 per cent are in private rentals and 26.5 per cent live in social housing.

More than half – 52 per cent – live in the metropolitan area, of whom 47 per cent are in the northern suburbs, 23 per cent in the southern suburbs and 20 per cent in the western suburbs.

The three largest population centres outside Adelaide are Port Augusta (3241 Aboriginal residents), the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands (2225 people) and Whyalla (1345).

Concept images of planned $10m Aboriginal Elders Village at Bedford Park.