Lorne revives adopt a worker scheme for summer

LORNE business owners are gearing up for another staff stretched summer, reviving the towns Adopt a Worker scheme in response to the town’s lack of affordable accommodation for labour.

Trade in the popular seaside town has been severely hampered in recent years, particularly over holiday periods, largely due to key workers being priced out by spiralling rent and real estate costs, and pressures from the pandemic.

The Adopt a Worker scheme is a creative approach from the Lorne Business & Tourism Association (LTBA) that involves a community callout for people to house a worker, or workers, over the peak holiday periods in town.

“Do you have accomm on Airbnb or a holiday rental?”, LTBA member and HAH café owner Leon Walker recently posted on social media.

“Last count there was 270 houses listed, would you instead look to list for worker accom’ at a reasonable cost…u might not get as much for your investment, but you’ll be helping out a community,” he wrote.

Crunching the maths, Mr Walker suggested that if five per cent of houses were released for short stays, 13 new residencies would be freed up for workers critical to the function of local hospitality, retail, trades, health and education.

Mr Walker was particularly pleased by results from one aspect of the scheme last year that targeted the teenage children of holidaying families, giving many any entry to the job market.

“There’s heaps of work, every week, weekends, school holidays, a great experience, fun, and they get paid!” An issue along much of the Surf Coast, Mr Walker said his pitch is relatively simple, “we need accommodation for our short term workers and long term for our long term residents and families.”

“No accommodation; no workers; no services; no community,” he said.