Darwin parents Sarah and Murray Liddle celebrate getting keys to Yilli subsided home under affordable accommodation scheme
A Darwin mum who spent three months in homelessness with her four children has described her relief after being given the keys to her new home. See how a $20m investment has helped her and 42 other Top End families.
Northern Territory
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A Darwin mum pushed into homelessness with her four children by cost of living expenses has described her relief after finally holding the keys to her own home.
Sarah and Murray Liddle and their four children are one of 42 Darwin families who have been able to access affordable homes, as a result of a $20m Aboriginals Benefit Account investment into Yilli Rreung Housing Aboriginal Corporation.
Ms Liddle said her family of six spent three months homeless in overcrowded accommodation while searching for a place they could afford.
She said this week they were preparing to move into their own four-bedroom home.
“This really is a dream come true for us,” Ms Liddle said.
“We have been living with family in a small home, just to stay off the streets.”
Ms Liddle said her family had made the difficult, and financially stressful decision to send her eldest son to a boarding school in Adelaide as it was “impossible for him to study with 11 people in one house”.
“Having a home again is huge for our family and for our children’s future,” she said.
“Being able to have a bit of money to save, and not counting our coins to make sure we can buy milk and bread for the kids before the next pay, is such a relief.”
Ms Liddle said her family simply could not afford mainstream rental accommodation, with Yilli subsidising 25 per cent of the market rate for the rent for employed, low-income First Nations families.
Chief executive Michael Berto said the 200 properties managed by Yilli were helping Indigenous Territorians to go “from emergency, to affordable and sustainable housing solutions”.
“Seeing Sarah and Murray Liddle and their children open the door to their family home fills all of us at Yilli with pride and joy,” Mr Berto said.
The Productivity Commission has revealed that Territorians are 12 times more likely to be experiencing homelessness than the average Australian, with more than 13,000 people either living on the street, in shelters, couch surfing or in ‘severely’ crowded homes in the NT.
It comes as vulnerable Territorians continue to face crippling waits for public housing, with a Darwin family expected to wait between four to six years to access a three-plus bedroom home.
The same family will wait between two to four years in Palmerston, between six to eight in Nhulunbuy and Tennant Creek and eight to ten years in Katherine and Alice Springs.
There are 5219 applications currently on the public housing waitlists, and only 362 vacant homes.
Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said Aboriginal people “disproportionately experience overcrowding and homelessness”, making up 88 per cent of homeless Territorians.
Solomon MP Luke Gosling said the $20m affordable housing investment was accompanied by a $50m investment into 100 new social homes across Darwin and Palmerston, while the NT and Federal governments committed to building up to 270 new remote homes a year for the next ten years.
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