By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A new WAYSS office has opened in Berwick to help growing numbers of homeless and at-risk dwellers in Casey.
Homelessness manager Jen Kelly said housing stress in the fast-growing muncipality was worsening, with little relief in recent State and Federal budgets.
The push for more affordable housing had to come from those Governments, she said.
“We should be able to provide more for citizens of this country than what we are.”
Up to 200 families flock to WAYSS’s offices each week, but the amount of short-term, crisis housing stock remains unchanged.
Often it feels like “shifting deck-chairs on the Titanic”, Ms Kelly says.
“We have families in Dandenong and Berwick coming in – and the only options for them currently is a motel.
“We’re trying not to send people away to nothing. Sometimes they don’t want what we have to offer.”
Registered rooming houses in Casey were booming, which was “not necessarily the ideal” but “unfortunately better than nothing”.
Ms Kelly said the Federal Government’s decades-long freeze of Newstart allowances and rental assistance put soaring rentals out of reach.
Even families with a full-time income were struggling to pay the rent, she said.
They had to pay the rent at all costs because “the alternative is not good”.
Casey North Community Information and Support Services general manager Susan Magee said the Federal Government’s hard line on Newstart recipients would push more into homelessness.
“They’re making things harder for people to be eligible for Centrelink. The process for applying will be more difficult, more people will be without income for longer periods.
“That will make people in housing more vulnerable to losing their homes.”
A State Government spokesman said the Government’s reforms had made housing “fairer” for first home buyers, renters and public housing tenants.
It had also increased homelessness outreach and supportive housing teams in areas of high need, including Dandenong, he said.
The Government had also helped make housing more affordable by increasing supply of lots with good access to jobs, schools, hospitals and public transport, he said.
La Trobe Federal MP Jason Wood said he aimed for everyone to have access to “affordable, safe and sustainable housing that contributes to social and economic participation.”
Federal budget initiatives included the establishment of a $1 billion National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation and the release of land for housing.
The Government was working with states and territories for ongoing indexed funding for housing supply and better homelessness outcomes.
It also committed $23 million in ongoing funding for Reconnect, a youth homelessness service.
The WAYSS Berwick office is open Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm.
