Homelessness rising but we have the ability to fix it right now

EVERY night across Australia more than 116,000 people face the end of their day with nowhere to call home. This equates to half the population of Hobart.

Some lay the blame on immigration policies, on poor planning and misplaced infrastructure, or the shortsighted distribution of the wealth reaped by investors and governments courtesy of the biggest property boom our state has ever seen.

But the time for blame is passed. Frankly, what’s the point? There are simply too many homeless, too many people suffering severe rental stress, too many young people worrying about whether they will ever own a home. It is literally making us sick, as a nation.

We can’t turn the clock back, what’s done is done. But we can fix it.

Together, as a nation, we urgently need to build a diverse range of homes and offer them at a price people can afford. At the rate Tasmania is growing — which is not necessarily a bad thing — we will need, at the very least, 10,000 homes built in the next decade to meet forecast demand. That’s a lot of construction and we need to start now.

In the 2016 Census, more than 1600 people in Tasmania registered as homeless. The real figure this year will be higher. Shelter Tasmania figures show that 57 per cent of homeless people are in the South of the state.

Last week the Community Housing Industry Association, of which my organisation is a member, launched its National Affordable Housing Plan. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Labor homelessness and housing spokesman Doug Cameron came along.

We called for a federal minister for housing. We asked that the housing issue facing Australia be reframed, not as a welfare problem but as an economic and infrastructure investment. It is that important. We offered a sensible, financially prudent plan for the building of 100,000 affordable homes and 100,000 social housing homes across the country by 2028. If followed, our plan will literally halve homelessness in 10 years.

These dwellings need to be solid and built to last. They need to be near public transport, so people can access training, employment and the services they need for a decent life — to educate their children, build neighbourhoods and look after each other. If we do this, people will actually rise to the challenge.

So, who’s going to build these houses and support residents to build their foundation for the future? We will. Organisations like Housing Choices Tasmania and our community housing colleagues across the state, via partnerships with governments — federal, state and local — and with the private sector. And here’s how. We need to access funding from myriad sources — the Federal National Housing

Too late for blame — just get on and use Tasmanian expertise, explains Kim Bomford

Finance and Investment Corporation, State Government and council land, low-cost bank finance, private sector investment and, of course, rental income. We need to share the risks and pull it all together, so that everybody wins. We know how to do that.

We need to build homes that are energy-efficient and able to accommodate people’s changing needs. We know how to do that.

We need to help the State Government and councils find planning solutions that allow private developers to participate and make a profit. We know how to do that.

We need to ensure that residents who need special help, get that help, so they can improve their health, support their families, seek new opportunities and take pride in where and how they live. We know how to do that too.

The benefits? A significant increase to the supply of affordable housing in Tasmania — as a first step, we can deliver 3000 homes over four years; the capacity to improve ageing housing stock; a massive boost to the local economy; and an increased capacity to house Tasmanians with special needs.

The highly regulated, notfor-profit community housing sector provides over 6000 homes for vulnerable and lowincome Tasmanians. We are a very significant player in housing, having built up our capacity in response to the ever-increasing demand, driven by the downward pressure placed on lowincome households forcing them out of the increasingly unaffordable private rental market.

I cannot even begin to imagine what the Tasmanian housing landscape would look like without harnessing the contribution of a robust Tasmanian community housing sector, one poised and ready to act. So maybe that’s why, when our peak body launched its national plan last week, Bill Shorten was in the room, and why he said “governments have an obligation to put community and social housing on the national political agenda”.

I just hope everyone else in Canberra was listening too.