The state’s lobby organization for low-income housing consumers has given the state government’s budget delivered today some thumbs up and some thumbs down.
Mary Perkins, executive officer of Shelter NSW, said ‘The budget gives a welcome and overdue stability to social housing, but does not provide breakthroughs in other areas of housing need’.
The budget saw a 5% real increase in spending on social housing, which covers public housing, community housing and Aboriginal housing. This will enable a small increase in the number of dwellings for rental to people with complex needs.
The budget grants to these programs should enable sustainability in the operations of the Department of Housing and Aboriginal Housing Officer.
What this means for existing tenants is that the major maintenance issues associated with housing are being addressed. The Department of Housing is also actively reconfiguring its dwellings to meet the needs of older tenants and tenants with disabilities.
On the down side, the budget does not give a much needed capital injection to community housing. This is necessary because community housing providers need to be able to cater low-income people who have affordability problems in the private market. Many low and moderate income people are not eligible for public housing because of Department of Housing policy changes to ‘reshape public housing’ for people with very low incomes and complex needs.
As well, there were no indications in the budget and governmental briefings on the budget that the government would bring in new initiatives to address affordability issues for private renters and low-income home-purchasers.
‘The government has said it would announce a statewide affordable housing strategy by the middle of this year, but the budget is not clear that there will be any new dollars attached to this’, Ms Perkins said.
Contact:
Mary Perkins, Executive Officer – 0419 919 091 (m), 9267 5733 ext.14
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