Mildura council establishes task force tackle the housing crisis

Mildura Rural City Council has moved to tackle the region's housing crisis in what is believed to be a first for the state. Read the plan.

Mildura council has taken a step to help secure housing for couch surfers and pensioners sleeping in their cars amid a dire housing shortage in the region.

At its February meeting Mildura Rural City Council moved to establish a taskforce to tackle the growing housing crisis.

Mallee Accommodation and Support Program (MASP) chief executive Vincent Wilson said the region was in dire need of a more robust plan to tackle the crisis that had been unfolding for many years.

“The number that I can easily point to, the number of people on the waitlist for social housing, is tragically 700 people in Mildura,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Helen Healy outside Mallee e Accommodation and Support Program for the announcement of the establishment the Mildura Social and Affordable Housing Taskforce

“Unfortunately that number hasn’t changed for years.

“So in Mildura, it’s not a post-Covid phenomenon like it is in many other areas.”

Mr Wilson’s hope is that the taskforce will be a meaningful step towards creating some real change.

“We are bringing a group together who, for the first time in a long time or perhaps ever, have the ability to create some real change,” he said.

It all began last year when deputy mayor and councillor for community development Helen Healy declared a housing affordability crisis in Sunraysia.

Ms Healy said she felt the council was failing its community by not guaranteeing them this “basic human right.”

“When I put forward my motion last year declaring a housing affordability crisis in Sunraysia, I said I believed we were failing our community on this basic human right, and I firmly believe this is still the case,” she said.

Cr Healy said she still heard heartbreaking stories of failures of some of the most vulnerable members of the community.

“We still hear stories of pensioners sleeping in their cars, domestic violence victims and survivors having to stay with their abusers, ” she said.

“Families having to leave their communities, all because of a lack of affordable rentals.”