Housing godsend
Feeling right at home
SHARON Parsons used to lie awake at night quietly worrying that she couldn’t guarantee she would always be looking at a roof above her head.
Living on a disability support pension made house hunting particularly difficult for the chatty 63year-old.
“I moved so many times in my life,” she said. “The mix doesn’t always work in social housing.”
Most recently, she has lived in public housing in Norlane, where she was forced to take out an AVO against a threatening male neighbour, and then a shoebox rental in Herne Hill she said had rats and sky-high rent payments.
Ms Parsons will next week move into her latest home, a “godsend” affordable housing project in the heart of Geelong.
Affordable housing provider Haven; Home, Safe will next week welcome the first tenants into its Smythe Place project, a renovated, two-storey, affordable rental apartment complex in the Geelong CBD.
The complex will provide 17 affordable apartments, exclusively catering for women over 55, with rent rates calculated against each woman’s income.
“This is brilliant,” Ms Parsons said yesterday from the shared dining area of the former Geelong Trades Hall dance hall.
“I don’t drive, so this is ideal for me. I can see everything and do everything but not have the pressure to travel late at night. It’s been a blessing.
“For a while I wasn’t sleeping because I was getting so stressed about not having a permanent place to live, so now I feel I can rest easy knowing I’m safe and secure.”
Ms Parsons’ self-contained apartment is not huge, but it is safe, clean and affordable.
After Ms Parsons’ rent assistance, she will barely have to pay more than $100 each week.
Haven; Home, Safe executive director operations Trudi Ray said the group planned to create a community in the accommodation project.
“This is a state-of-the-art, safe, secure, modern building specifically for women over 55,” Ms Ray said.