‘I’ll be homeless tonight’: Public housing waiting list outpaces Big Housing Build

The number of families waiting for public housing in Victoria has jumped to another record, increasing by 3000 households in a year, despite the Andrews government’s $5.3 billion Big Housing Build program.

Homes Victoria published fresh data on Good Friday, revealing 57,672 families were on a waiting list seeking housing last December, while another 9500 households already in housing hoped to move to a more suitable property.

The public housing waiting list in Victoria has grown to a new record.Credit: Jason South

Of the total households on the waiting list, 36,459 were in urgent need. Most of the new applications were for one bedroom properties, but almost 20,000 were for two or three bedrooms.

The Andrews government’s landmark $5.3 billion Big Housing Build was announced in 2020 to add 12,000 social and affordable homes, often by rebuilding existing public housing or by constructing private apartments.

Shadow housing spokesman Richard Riordan, relying on Department of Families, Fairness and Housing annual reports, said total social housing stock had only increased by 74 properties between June 2018 and June 2022.

But the government said that was because of a drop in figures when the department changed the way social housing was counted in 2019. Between July 2020 and June 2022 social housing stock increased by 1776 homes to 86,887 homes.

Riordan said slow progress on the Big Housing Build was failing to stop the waiting list expanding. He called for the release of the updated waiting list data from March.

“The simple question is, what the heck are they doing?” Riordan said.

A Melbourne father approved for priority housing in 2020 after a family breakdown, who asked not to be named to protect his mental health, is still waiting for a home almost three years later despite dozens of advocates and MPs writing letters of support.

He spends most nights in his car, limiting his ability to see his two children and worsening his physical and mental health. He’s been assaulted on the street and feels the government has ignored and mistreated him.

“I’ll be homeless tonight, I don’t know when this is going to be resolved,” the man in his 40s, on the disability support pension and a National Disability Insurance Scheme participant, told The Sunday Age.

“All I want, it’s not a big ask, is to better myself, not be left on the streets ... I want to get out of this.”

Katelyn Butterss, chief executive of the Victorian Public Tenants Association, said people were waiting three, five or even 10 years on the housing register.

“I haven’t seen growth on the list pause or go backwards, ever. I’ve only ever see it get bigger and bigger as far back as I look, I’ve never seen it stagnate,” Butterss said.

“I hate to see the list grow, I never want to see it grow, but I’m also never surprised that it’s grown. We’ve had a chronic lack of public housing stock in Victoria and around this country for many, many years.”

She said demand for help from the association had also grown from about 600 people in 2021 to more than 1000 last year.

A government spokeswoman said the cost of living crisis, brought on by COVID-19 and rising interest rates, was to blame for increased demand on social and affordable housing.

“This is the case right around the country,” she said.

“The last time the Liberals were in government, they cut hundreds of millions of dollars from housing and homelessness services, and now their federal colleagues are blocking billions of dollars of investment in new social and affordable housing across the country, including Victoria.”

In the past financial year, 5553 households moved into social housing.

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