Social housing left empty
A BELMONT social housing tenant has called for Geelong’s accommodation support services to fill empty dwellings and improve the safety of tenants, some of whom are “too frightened to sleep” due to unruly neighbours.
The resident, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed three units at a Belmont address had been left vacant for up to four years.
Accommodation support provider genU confirmed one unit had been vacant for three years and two others had been empty for about 18 months.
“How can you justify empty units of social housing, with the homelessness we’ve got?” the resident asked. “They should be given a coat of paint and fresh wall coverings, and homeless people moved in there with basic furniture.”
The resident also said elderly tenants at the Belmont accommodation feared disruptive neighbours, with one house stripped of thousands of dollars of belongings while the tenant was in hospital.
“One resident had their front door kicked in just the other night, and that resident has moved out to stay with friends at night now. She’s too frightened to sleep here of a night,” the tenant said.
“They’ve scared the living daylights out of her. I don’t sleep much at night now either.”
GenU said it was “committed to redeveloping the Belmont site for the continued use of social housing”.
“This is in addition to the redevelopment of social housing sites in South Geelong and Geelong West,” a spokesman said.
“An information session was held in late December 2019, advising residents of this redevelopment and allowing for consultation.
“To ensure that we can find temporary accommodation for our current Belmont residents, these three units have been left vacant.”
Geelong is facing an estimated need for 13,500 new social housing dwellings by 2041, while also replacing 1500 ageing public housing dwellings, according to the City of Greater Geelong’s Social Housing Plan 2020-41.