Premier knocks back push for 20,000 social homes

A PITCH for the state government to build 20,000 new social homes in 10 years would go a long way towards creating the almost 6,000 homes needed in the Geelong region, but Premier Daniel Andrews says executing the idea is not that simple.

The Community Housing Industry Association of Victoria’s state election platform, launched last week, aims to lock in a pipeline of affordable housing beyond the state government’s existing initiatives in the Big Housing Build.

Increasing the supply of social housing is one of G21’s priority projects, with the lobby group’s Housing in G21 Taskforce finding there were 5,898 people either homeless or experiencing rental stress with moderate, low or very low income levels across the five municipalities (based on 2016 Census data).

The Big Housing Build has committed $5.3 billion towards creating 12,000 subsidised housing properties in Victoria within four years.

CHIA Victoria chief executive officer Sarah Toohey acknowledged that it was a “terrific investment” but “the social housing system is again headed for a bust” when the Big Housing Build funding stopped in 2024.

“Social housing isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential infrastructure, like schools and hospitals and we need to start investing in it the same way.

“Victoria lags behind the rest of the country with just 3 per cent of our stock as social housing, when the national average is 4.2 per cent. To bridge that gap we need to build around 60,000 new homes over the next decade. This fund would deliver a third of those homes.”

The Social Housing Investment Fund we’re proposing will deliver a long-term funding pipeline, to support the construction of between 1,500 to 2,500 new social homes a year. That building activity will create about 10,000 jobs in construction and supply-chain industries and the wider economy.”

Speaking in Geelong, Mr Andrews said he understood the CHIA’s advocacy for more homes – “it is kind of their thing” – but public, social and affordable housing “have got the biggest order book in the history of our country right now” and it was not as easy as deciding to double these efforts.

“We’ve already got the biggest build – it’s called the ‘Big Housing Build’ for a reason, because it’s the biggest in our nation’s history.

“They’d [the CHIA] like us to double it. Well, I’d like to, too, but the money would have to come from somewhere, the materials, the tradies… there are limits, and I’m rather focused on getting the Big Housing Build done, and we’ll have more to say on what comes beyond that.”