Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Housing

Sam HIBBINS (Prahran) (19:13): (677) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing, and the action I seek from the minister is to urgently commit to ending homelessness here in Victoria. Homelessness has risen over the past five years. At a time when we should be ending homelessness Victorians are now facing the biggest housing crisis ever. Rents and the cost of living are at an all-time high, and more and more people are being pushed into homelessness. Thirty thousand people are experiencing homelessness every single night. Public housing waiting lists continue to rise – up to 120,000 people now. In the Prahran electorate hundreds of people are without a home on any given night, in unsafe or insecure accommodation or sleeping rough. Homelessness is the number one social justice issue facing the Prahran community. The impacts on people’s lives are devastating, and just as devastating is the fact that all of this has been preventable.

In a generation housing has become seen as a commodity, not as a home. We are seeing fewer public housing homes in Victoria than we had 10 years ago, and under this government we are just seeing more of the same housing policies that we have had in the past. Now, with vast swathes of public housing land being privatised, things need to change. The Greens have put forward a bill, a vision, to end homelessness by the end of the decade that makes housing a human right, that has targets and reporting for building more public housing and that has targets for funding homelessness services. Everyone deserves a safe and secure place to call home, and we know the most effective way to end homelessness is to provide enough long-term, secure housing for everyone who needs it. Just like with public health, just like with public education, governments have a responsibility to make sure everyone who needs one has access to a public home.