State government urged to give tax breaks to property owners who free up buildings for pop-up housing
Federal and state political leaders are desperately trying to find ways of providing more housing for the homeless and vulnerable. Now one bold idea hopes to create more short-term housing for the city’s homeless.
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The state government has been urged to give land tax exemptions to property owners who make their buildings available for short-term housing.
And construction companies seeking future government tenders should need to show evidence of “pro bono” support for social housing projects, says a submission to a state parliament inquiry.
Housing All Australians director Robert Pradolin said that his organisation was working with the property industry to provide pop-up housing in empty buildings awaiting redevelopment approval.
“With the collaboration of an appropriate housing services support agency, many of these buildings can be repurposed for short-term shelter and used as crisis or transitional accommodation for people experiencing housing stress,” his submission said.
Mr Pradolin, a former general manager of Frasers Property, said the government could ramp up the pop-up concept by helping to identify buildings, cut red tape and encourage the private sector to help on a pro bono basis.
“The state government could incentivise the private sector by offering … to suspend the payment of land tax to the property owners if their building is made available to HAA, and is able to be converted into short-term transitional housing and managed by an appropriate (agency) like...the Salvation Army,” his submission said.
Properties would be returned to owners when they were ready to be developed.
But Mr Pradolin stressed that pop-up shelters alone were only a short-term response to the housing crisis – “we must build more housing”.
“(With lack of shelter) there are resulting unintended consequences to humans in the areas of mental and physical heath, family violence, policing, justice and ultimately welfare dependency,” his submission said.
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Meanwhile, Melbourne City Council has a plan to create more than 300 crisis accommodation beds in the CBD in conjunction with charities and the private sector.
And the Salvation Army wants to provide dozens of beds with health and support services for the homeless at its Bourke St centre.
Parliament’s inquiry into homelessness held public hearings on Wednesday.