New deal to tackle housing affordability crisis on Mid-North Coast

They are the invisible casualties of the Mid-North Coast’s housing affordability crunch - but soon they’ll have a place to call home.

A new affordable housing option has been launched to help women who have been living in their cars or in precarious housing up and down the coast.

Plans for 40 new home units at Bellingen were announced on Tuesday in a partnership model that may be replicated across the coast.

Federal and state governments will each tip in $5 million to transform the old nursing home near the heart of town.

The Royal Freemasons Benevolent Institution owns the land and buildings, and will manage the new accommodation.

At its core will be meeting the needs of the “hidden homeless” - single, low-income women, aged over 55, who are often survivors of domestic violence.

“We know of women who have been living in their cars or in precarious housing up and down the coast,” Kerry Pearse, chair of the Housing Matters Action Group, said.

Local MPs Melinda Pavey and Pat Conaghan and Frank Price (centre), chief executive officer of the Royal Freemasons Benevolent Institution, who will own and manage the affordable housing project for vulnerable women at Bellingen.

That lobby group - together with the Freemasons, Bellingen council and the local MPs in Melinda Pavey (state) and Pat Conaghan (federal) - have been looking for fixes to the housing affordability crisis on the Mid-North Coast for the past three years.

Royal Freemasons Benevolent Institution chief executive officer Frank Price said the not-for-profit had been operating in NSW and the ACT since 1880, and this was its “first foray into affordable housing”.

The project will result in the main part of the old nursing home being refurbished while some outbuildings will be knocked down to make way for fresh builds.

Mr Price said the upshot would be two modern three-storeyed residential developments of one and two-bedroom units which would be available to the older women cohort at 70 per cent of the going market rent rate.

“Basically, they’ll have tenure - this will be their home,” he said.

It was a poignant moment for Oxley MP Melinda Pavey, who at the weekend was told she would not be part of the state cabinet after a reshuffle.

In her last dance as housing minister, Mrs Pavey reflected that her own grandmother passed in the old nursing home.

“House prices and rents on the Mid-North Coast have risen by 30 per cent in the past 12 months, placing incredible pressure on housing markets like Coffs Harbour and Bellingen,” Mrs Pavey said.

She said she had to “push and push” her own government agency “to re-imagine public housing” to chip away at the affordability challenge.

And while stripped of ministerial responsibility, Mrs Pavey said she’d continue to tackle the issue.

“I’m not going to stop in this space,” she said.

Mr Conaghan said the model of all tiers of government working in tandem with not-for-profits was an effective way of clawing away at the lack of affordable housing in the region.

“This is a classic example of when many streams come together into the river,” he said.

“This project represents value for money to government and will ensure a safe space for older, vulnerable women.”

It’s hoped the refurbished units will be available in as little as three to six months, and the new builds in about eight months.