$5m fund to kickstart emergency response

These funds will be important to provide hope to people struggling, and demonstrate ... recognition of the scale of this problem — KYM GOODES

CABINET has signed off on a $5 million fund to help Housing Minister Roger Jaensch deliver emergency housing solutions as soon as this week.

Mr Jaensch yesterday told the Mercury his Liberal Government colleagues had “strongly supported” his recently-announced plan to use existing accommodation providers and prefabricated units to offer shelter to Tasmanians struggling to find a home.

The Braddon Liberal MHA also hinted at work under way to find “other options” in cities that could be suited to housing Tasmanians — but remained tight-lipped on what that meant.

“[We are looking at options] where there’s accommodation that could meet our needs, and we need to do more than just rent a few rooms,” Mr Jaensch said.

The $5 million released by Cabinet will kickstart the Government’s emergency response to the housing shortage that has about 1600 Tasmanians sleeping rough every night.

“Most immediately, that’s going to be securing more rooms this week for more people to be moved into while we find out what they need,” Mr Jaensch said.

“Five million dollars gets us going. We don’t yet have a fully costed plan, but we know what we need to do and what we can do first … [this] gives us the capacity to go into the market to secure more rooms to hire or buy accommodation.”

Bureaucrats were busy finding prefabricated units the state could rent or buy from local and mainland suppliers to then place at existing emergency shelters to help expand their capacity, Mr Jaensch said.

He said the Government would buy about 20 units — whether repurposed shipping containers, “pods” or demountable units — in the first instance.

“The way we’ll need to do it is get them where we can get them quickest, from wherever they’re available,” Mr Jaensch said.

The plan to enlist existing accommodation providers to rent out their rooms, as well as renting or buying the prefabricated units, came out of an emergency housing summit held last Friday.

The meeting was attended by Mr Jaensch, Premier Will Hodgman, community sector organisations, Speaker Sue Hickey and representatives from Labor and the Greens.

Tasmanian Council of Social Service chief executive Kym Goodes said the new $5 million headed towards housing initiatives showed the Government was serious about addressing the needs of Tasmanians without shelter.

“These funds will be important to provide hope to people struggling, and demonstrate that there is recognition of the scale of this problem, and that solutions can be quickly implemented through the release of these funds,” Ms Goodes said.

Federal Housing Minister Michael Sukkar will today join Mr Jaensch at a housing and homelessness summit organised by the Hobart City Council.