Wollongong’s Housing Trust to build affordable housing for women under council grant
The new homes will service older women or single mums facing, or trying to get out of homelessness on the south coast.
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Wollongong’s Housing Trust is set to build 17 new homes especially for women suffering severe financial stress, thanks to a $4.3 million grant from Wollongong Council.
The villas and townhouses will be built at Bellambi and another suburb yet to be decided, to combat the growing number of women facing housing stress or homelessness in the Illawarra.
Ten years ago, Annemarie Sorenson was one of these struggling women.
Her partner, who was a full-time teacher suddenly had to stop work after becoming seriously ill, and bills started to stack up.
“I felt like I was drowning,” she said.
“Things got really tough all of a sudden and we spiralled down hill. I was at a point where I thought where we would lose it all.”
Ms Sorenson found out about the Housing Trust and immediately applied for accommodation with the housing trust.
Within three weeks, she and her partner had moved into a brand new apartment in the Wollongong CBD.
“It’s the perfect home, my partner is in a wheelchair and it was fully accessible for her,” she said.
“Without the Housing Trust we would have been homeless. I was suffering from massive anxiety, I didn’t know what to do.”
The Housing Trust plans to match council’s $4 million grant dollar for dollar, to provide more housing for women just like Ms Sorensen and her partner.
“[The new homes] will be for older single women, and also single women with children that would otherwise be homeless, or to get them out of homelessness,” Housing Trust CEO Michele Adair said.
“These will be affordable rental homes that become, not just a house, but homes where people can continue to live their lives and manage their health.”
Ms Adair said in the Illawarra, 3,500 people were on the crisis waiting list for affordable housing, and in the Wollongong LGA alone, 8,000 people were in rental stress.
“For everyone of those households they are a couple of pay cheques or a bad illness, a car accident or a job loss away from homelessness,” she said.
“Many of those households have children which exemplifies the problem, so although this will be two properties of around 16 homes, the hard part is going to be the hundreds of people we cant house yet.”
The grant was awarded to the Housing Trust late last year, under the council’s affordable housing program.
Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said council would continue to do it’s best to support more affordable housing projects, given the number of people currently under financial stress in the region.
Ms Adair said the build on the new accommodation would likely be completed by late next year.