While managing the archives for Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodShepANZ), Fraser Faithfull keeps a close eye on the impact of government policies for disadvantaged women, children and families. Today he shares a review of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Homelessness, the challenges for the sector in Gippsland, and innovative responses that could support larger policy reforms.

What the Inquiry is telling us

The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Homelessness has been powering along since late November. The witness transcripts are confronting, yet there is much to be learned about the structural challenges to housing in regional Victoria from just skimming a selection of the transcripts published to date, perhaps starting with the Morwell Orange Door team.

Homelessness in central Gippsland seems to be driven in large part by poverty and family violence. Several witnesses (including the Orange Door staff representing Quantum Support Services, Anglicare Victoria, and Latrobe Community Health Service) highlighted the serious lack of accommodation options around Traralgon. The Gippsland Family Violence workers face tremendous obstacles finding temporary accommodation for women fleeing danger. In turn, setting up refuges for women is fraught with difficulty. There is also a recognised shortage of accommodation for male perpetrators of family violence who are under court orders. It seems that many women are escaping family violence situations in Melbourne and seeking help in Gippsland, while many (perhaps non-working) perpetrators are leaving Gippsland for Melbourne.

Tiny houses could be part of a viable response to the lack of affordable housing in Gippsland. Photo by Andrea Davis on Unsplash

Agencies recognise the need for a single point of contact for a range of services. The VCOSS team and the Community Housing Gippsland team, for example, both reiterate the widely acknowledged need for holistic solutions, getting beyond a siloed service model to provide a single case manager for each client who can cover a range of needs.

Individuals represent 60% of people presenting for emergency housing assistance. The testimony from Homelessness Services, Gippsland, indicates that the private rental market is not going to solve homelessness. While there are worthwhile initiatives like the Private Rental Assistance Program, there just aren’t enough affordable rental dwellings on the market, particularly for the majority of clients they see who receive the Newstart Allowance. The testimony from Homelessness Services, Gippsland states:

“We rely heavily on private rental as our long-term housing avenue for people. So of these we had 1,462 single people presenting to our service and throughout Gippsland there are only 25 affordable one-bedroom properties. I do not need a calculator to figure that out.”

With nearly 50 per cent of the clients they see disclosing a mental illness, the private housing market is unable to hold properties for people who must go into short-term care and are unable and fall behind in their rental payments in consequence. Furthermore, many options do not acknowledge the emotional bond of pet ownership, forcing individuals to choose between a temporary housing solution and keeping their pet. Services are starting to be more responsive to the needs of pet owners, through more accommodating policies and better services.

A complex problem needs a multi-pronged approach to solutions

While many are waiting for the Victorian Government to kick off a long overdue “Big Build” in public housing, which needs at least 6000 dwellings per year for the next 10 years to keep up with demand, innovative projects in the urban community housing space experiment with new models. One example is the Harris Transportable Housing Project, planning to build dozens tiny homes in Melbourne’s inner west. Launch Housing and Geoff Harris - well known as a major supporter of the Streat youth initiative - are project sponsors. The Quantum Services team in Gippsland have suggested a network of such tiny house villages as one possible initiative for their region, which could be used for transitional housing into the private rental market.

Disturbing statistics about homelessness continue to emerge. In December last year the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare presented data on the appallingly poor rate of long-term housing assistance provided to domestic violence victims. Taking a slightly different tack, an interesting perspective on household work and its moderating role on children’s joblessness as young adults was published by the Journal of Family Issues early this year: Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia [HILDA] researchers conclude that engaging unemployed men domestically can mitigate intergenerational disadvantage, which would also reduce precarious housing levels.

As we have seen in response to the horrific year of bushfires, coordinated volunteerism is a viable response. Could it be the case that the essential ingredients for a small-scale regional-based community housing solution might already be in place in Victoria? It is not hard to re-imagine the core components of The Block TV show utilised to improve the affordable housing stock. Tradies could supervise and coordinate the upgrading of currently uninhabitable houses. Volunteers could be drawn from men’s sheds and TAFE colleges. By far the biggest men’s shed I have ever seen is located in the middle of Traralgon. Woodwork is a specialty, and all are welcome, not just blokes! The Yallourn TAFE Campus provides specialised trades training, and is the main woodworking and building college in the region. If old houses and suitable land could be made available, it seems likely a voluntary or discounted labour force could be engaged to assist as builder’s labourers – perhaps also counting towards apprenticeship hours. This mirrors the volunteer process utilised by the not-for-profit Habitat for Humanity, in Australia and around the world.

Challenges and opportunities for addressing homelessness in Gippsland