Summit on housing crisis won’t get people out of tents fast but search for solutions has started

THE Hodgman Government deserves credit for heeding the Mercury’scall for urgent action on Hobart’s housing crisis and convening yesterday’s summit.

THE Hodgman Government deserves credit for heeding the Mercury’scall for urgent action on Hobart’s housing crisis and convening yesterday’s summit.

From as far back as October, the Mercury has been repeatedly calling for serious and urgent attention — and leading the way in raising awareness of the very real crisis playing out in our suburbs.

The statistics tell us that rental vacancy rates in Hobart are now stuck at the lowest ever recorded in any capital city, it now costs more to rent a basic house here than in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, and that a startling one in 30 houses in Hobart are now listed on short-term rental website Airbnb.

But it’s the very real personal impact of these numbers that matter.

MORE: ‘WE SIMPLY NEED MORE HOUSES,’ SAYS GUTWEIN

We were the first to report – on January 4 – that families in Hobart unable to secure a rental property had been forced to pitch a tent in friends’ backyards. And then on February 10 we shocked the community with the revelation that a small tent city had been set up in the Showground.

It was heartening, then, to hear Premier Will Hodgman open the housing summit with a vow that “no Tasmanians should be living in a tent, no Tasmanians should be without a home”.

But it was disappointing that only three hours was set aside to discuss the issue, and that the session — really the first action of this new Hodgman administration — was closed to both the public, and media.

It was also frustrating that Treasurer Peter Gutwein was unable to move away from campaigning mode yesterday, pointing out in his opening remarks to the summit that the housing crisis reflected a booming economy. He’s right, in a way. But there’s a time and place for such boasts — and in front of a room of people who have given up their time to offer the government their expertise in dealing with a critical social issue probably isn’t that time and place.

There are no easy answers. That’s true.

But, as the director of the Australia Institute Tasmania Leanne Minshull pointed out in the Mercury on Monday, this crisis was a slow-burn. It had its roots in a property boom that priced more middle-income earners out of home ownership, pushing them down the housing continuum and competing for rental properties traditionally occupied by lower-income earners. This in turn has pushed lower income people into crisis and on to public housing waiting lists.

And so, seeing as these things played over a long period of time, a government more focused on the real issues on the streets of Hobart might have been able to get ahead of the crisis before it got away from them. Certainly they would surely have thought longer about allowing Airbnb and other similar providers to operate in Tasmania free from any regulations.

Anyway, the horse has bolted. And at least the government is now listening. While all of the responses outlined in the summit communique are medium-term at best, authorities are preparing to act. That is cold comfort for those living in tents in our suburbs, but at least we are on the way to getting this resolved.