Tuesday, 14 May 2024

Bendigo housing

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (20:46): (890) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Housing. After 10 years what is the government doing to address the homeless crisis in Bendigo, and why does the burden fall back on to community groups to pick up the pieces? The Bendigo Winter Night Shelter recently announced that it will not run this year due to a lack of volunteers. Many homeless people have relied on this service to get through the punishing cold of winter in central Victoria. The winter night shelter provides beds, toilets, showers, laundry services and meals for the homeless. Until it resumes the closure will leave a big gap in the support on offer for Bendigo’s homeless, offering overnight crisis accommodation for people. Homelessness is tough at any time of year, but winter is especially brutal and increases the prospect of people becoming extremely unwell.

Bendigo-based ARC Justice received a one-fifth share of $2 million in the state budget for housing support services for 12 months. This funding is not ongoing and is nowhere near enough. Their organisation tries to help people stay in their rental properties so they do not become homeless. The rental market is as tight as they have ever seen it, and there is nowhere else for them to go. Their CEO Damian Stock said they have seen a dramatic increase in requests for assistance, particularly around rent increases and people facing eviction notices, in both the Shepparton and Bendigo offices. According to the local homeless service MADCOW, Make a Difference, Change Our World, many people are sleeping rough in Bendigo every night. Despite this need, it is disappointing that homeless services get very little or no public funding, given we are currently paying over $15 million every single day in interest to pay Labor’s massive state debt, which will rise to nearly $26 million every single day by 2028.

People across Northern Victoria are sleeping in cars, couch surfing or surviving in temporary accommodation. We know of entire families that are living in tents in the bush near Bendigo. In Mooroopna people have been left with nowhere to rent after their homes were flooded, and this is no way to live. At the last census, in 2021, the ABS recorded that 30,000 homeless people are in Victoria, a 24 per cent increase since 2016 and a jump of almost five times the national average. In Bendigo East, the Premier’s own electorate, in 2016 – 159 people without a home; last year this jumped to 334, one of the highest increases in the state.

Labor government policies are making the housing crisis even worse. A raft of new taxes, red tape and regulations mean landlords are selling their properties in droves, and as rental properties disappear from the market, people are being forced onto the social housing waitlist and onto the streets. Bendigo councillor Vaughan Williams is aware of the escalating crisis, and he has put forward a proposal for an emergency and transitional housing solution based on tiny house communities. The Bendigo Winter Night Shelter are working towards reopening in 2025, but in the meantime I look forward to the minister’s response.