Housing
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:07): (894) My question is for the minister for housing. Community housing providers generally rely on a mix of different funding sources to be financially sustainable. This leaves the providers and residents or potential residents vulnerable when there are changes to those funding sources, such as when government programs are cut. Your federal colleagues have recently wound back access to the NDIS for people with complex psychosocial needs, a group already at very high risk of homelessness. Some community housing providers, such as those that provide supported housing to people with complex psychosocial needs, are being forced to reconsider their business models and their capacity to provide more housing. This highlights the significant vulnerabilities in the community housing sector. Minister, given the government’s housing strategy relies on a massive expansion of community housing to provide Victoria’s social housing, what assurances can you provide that the community housing sector has the capacity to deliver the quantity of housing your government is proposing given the inherent vulnerabilities in its funding models?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:08): Thank you, Dr Mansfield, for your question and for highlighting the priorities and the workload of the community housing providers, who are accredited through a really rigorous and consistent framework for the purpose of delivery of social housing for people on the social housing waitlist. One of the things that is really important to underscore in this discussion that we have and the broader work across governments at a state and a federal level is the work and the priorities of community housing providers in addressing the overarching need for people who are most vulnerable. They are not-for-profit, for-purpose organisations with charitable status. They operate to address the needs of and to provide supports to people across a range of specific areas of need, and you have identified people with complex mental health conditions as one of the groups which are supported by community housing providers.
I want to acknowledge the tireless efforts of community housing providers in meeting people where they are and providing supports which help people to move from homelessness, crisis and transitional housing into social housing that is secure, that is there for a long-term purpose, regulated by the Residential Tenancies Act, and that comes under a really significant part of the Commonwealth’s priorities – to deliver the Housing Australia Future Fund, which again leans into community housing.
We do have a model for the purpose of funding which is intended not just to provide community housing providers with a rent revenue stream through the purpose of GST exemption and that Commonwealth funding envelope but also to make sure that they can access a range of other program-specific funding streams that exist when they are delivering services on top of that.
Community housing providers are in a position to deliver more housing at scale because of the settings that apply in the interface between state and federal funding allocations and streams. We are really determined to continue that funding and that support. As I have said to the Community Housing Industry Association – CHIA – and its members and as I have said to people in this chamber and to individual organisations when I meet with them and their tenants, we want to make sure that we are supporting this particular set of providers, because we cannot do it without them. We know that in order to address the shortage of social and affordable housing we need partners on board who are sufficiently resourced and equipped, who are sufficiently regulated and who have a clear imprimatur to do the work that they do, and this is where, again, the funding streams that we have will continue.
As part of our record investment across the Big Housing Build and the Regional Housing Fund – that is $6.3 billion this year alone – we have allocated $1.3 billion for social and affordable housing in Victoria. The work goes on, however, and this is where, again, the re-election of the Albanese Labor government will ensure that we can have those partnerships in place that are so integral to meeting demand.
Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (12:11): Thank you, Minister, for that response. Getting back to my question, it is really about what happens to the housing providers and the residents if, say, access to a funding stream dries up – people with complex psychosocial needs who are no longer able to access the NDIS and no longer have the funding available to support their entry into community housing. This is potentially leaving a whole group of people with potentially no access to appropriate community housing. What is being done to ensure that those who lose funding streams like the NDIS can still access social housing?
Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:12): Thanks, Dr Mansfield, for highlighting an area of concern around vulnerability for people in the social housing system. Social housing is capped at 30 per cent of income for people who are in it and 25 per cent for public housing. It is long-term housing; this is not about evicting people. We have just recently debated legislation removing the right to evict without reason. This is about making sure we can provide support to people. Support may come in a variety of different forms, whether that is rent assistance or whether that is support for people who are receiving Centrelink benefits, disability support payments or other payments that in the aggregate comprise their income. We will not evict people where the income settings are 30 per cent of their income; that may well mean they are paying significantly below market rates. Just recently we had a deferral of the rent review to enable people to get access to the information they needed, including seeking rental relief and hardship assistance. Again, I am very happy to provide you with information on that, including as it relates to NDIS and other payments.