Regional Victorian renters facing homelessness due to housing shortage

With record low vacancy rates, some regional Victorian renters are being pushed on to the streets as they struggle to find a home.

Regional Victoria’s rental property market has experienced record low vacancy rates so far this year with some people struggling to find a place to live.

Since the Covid pandemic, the regional Victorian rental market has tightened and become more expensive with the vacancy rate falling to 1.4 per cent in March this year, according to figures released by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria.

The weekly median rent for a house in regional Victoria has also increased from $350 in January 2020 to $420 in March this year.

Whereas in metro Melbourne, the rental market had a 5.1 per cent vacancy rate in March this year.

With rental rates so low, it has led some community support services to take action.

MALLACOOTA SOLUTION

A novel idea to convert holiday units to emergency accommodation has helped address critical housing shortages at Mallacoota.

Like many regional areas, the remote coastal village has a large number of people in need of housing. Some residents were displaced and became homeless during the Black Summer fires but others have fallen victim to the widespread rental crisis following the pandemic.

The significant lack of housing forced local health centre Mallacoota District Health and Support Service to think outside the square.

Ballymena Holidays Units — five self-contained, ready-made villas — were on the market and MDHSS successfully purchased them last year.

Three of the units, now known as Miva Cottages, are already being used for permanent residents and two are for emergency or respite care.

The criteria for accessing the accommodation is based on need, with applicants such as Rosemary Hannah assessed on their level of priority.

“I was homeless for a month after the bushfires,” Rosemary said. “During the aftermath of the bushfires I worked in an emergency capacity at MDHSS 24-seven. I slept on the floor at the Miva Miva Hall. I had nowhere else to go.”

Rosemary has suffered a series of traumatic events in her life and has general debilitation and mental health concerns. Accessing the accommodation through MDHSS has helped on her road to recovery.

“Every day I breathe a sigh of relief that I have somewhere to live and it’s comfortable and pleasant,” she said.

“Converting the holiday units to emergency accommodation was an excellent move in the right direction.

“To live here has taken a lot of pressure off and people say how good I’m looking. I was badly knocked about and MDHSS has helped me greatly and I owe them a lot of gratitude.”

MDHSS has also bought an adjoining block of land and building will begin this month on additional independent-living units and respite accommodation with help from a $2.1m National Recovery and Resilience Agency bushfire grant.

MDHSS chief executive officer Anne Mwagiru said they were pleased to provide the new accommodation resource to help the community fill the critical housing shortage.

The regional Victorian rental market had a vacancy rate of 1.4 per cent in March this year.

Across all of regional Victoria, the Warrnambool and Western District region recorded the lowest average vacancy rate at just 0.2 per cent in March this year and 0.4 per cent in February.

Shepparton and Goulburn (0.5 per cent) and East Gippsland and Wellington Shire regions (0.7 per cent) on average in March also recorded vacancy rates below 1 per cent.

Falk and Co Warrnambool director David Falk said the rental market in Victoria’s southwest had become tighter than normal in the past 18 months.

He said the supply of longer-term rentals on the market had been reduced because investors were moving into the southwest regions and turning properties into short-term rental options.

“We have never had a big vacancy rate in this region and it has definitely gotten tighter,” he said.

“People have also moved back to the region and that has taken stock out of the market and reduced the range of properties.”

With more Victorians moving into the regions, the price of rentals has also increased.

Victoria’s southwest coast was home to the most expensive rentals in regional Victoria with the Surf Coast, Greater Geelong and Warrnambool recording the highest median weekly rent for houses in March at $590, $450 and $450 a week respectively.

Anglicare Victoria southwest community development co-ordinator Louise Serra said her services had become significantly busier with rent prices becoming unaffordable for some, while others had been left homeless and unable to find a new rental.

“The impact of the vacancy rates have been devastating,” she said. “People are being asked to leave the places they have rented for years. They have become homeless very quickly and suddenly.

“I’m not sure what the answer is but we all need to work together because I think it is going to get worse before it gets better.”