Wednesday, 22 June 2022

Homelessness

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (09:47): I rise to talk about the From Homelessness to a Home program, which the government announced last February. I was particularly taken with a tweet from the Minister for Housing, the Honourable Richard Wynne, a couple of days ago, where he announced that last month residents started taking up residency in the Audrey Rainsford supported living units in Carlton. That program is designed to deliver 1845 houses for the homeless. We hear lots of negativity around COVID, don’t we, and the things that really bit hard during the pandemic and continue to bite hard. But if there was one ray of sunshine out of all of this, it was that we were able to shine a light on the homelessness problem here in this state. We were able to provide housing for people who were doing it tough, doing it rough, sleeping rough out there in our community, to the eternal credit of Richard Wynne, who I think will go down in history as the best housing minister this state has ever seen. It warms the cockles of your heart when you see those sorts of tweets. There is a video that he has put up there with the tweet, and if you do not believe me, jump on, have a look and listen to Emma and Anthony from Wintringham, who deliver the housing, and to Paul, a homeless man who has finally got a roof over his head after 30 years.