By Violet Li
Community Information and Support Cranbourne executive officer Leanne Petrides has advocated for more social housing properties in Casey as a response to the State Government’s Housing Statement, a major shake-up of housing and planning across the state.
The Housing Statement rolled out on 20 September proposed to build up to 769 new social housing homes over the next five years through the funding of Commonwealth’s Social Housing Accelerator investment, which adds to 12,000 homes in the pipeline as a part of the Big Housing Build investment in public and community housing and more than 4,000 social housing homes through other programs.
The City of Casey’s Housing Tenure data shows about 4.9 per cent of low income households were in social housing in 2021.
Ms Petrides said many residents in Casey were struggling with mortgage or rental stress.
“Nearly 7,000 social housing properties are needed in Casey right now, according to the 2023 data from Southern Homelessness Services Network.
“Any steps towards increased social housing can only be a positive move, and a great start.
“Right now, we need 6,000 new social housing properties each year in Victoria for the next decade to meet the demand and make real inroads in the public housing waiting list.
“Proposed planning and zoning changes appear to increase the likelihood of more social housing being built.
Ms Petrides said she had been in her role for 24 years and she could not remember a time when the confluence of housing stress and cost-of-living pressures had made it so hard for people.
“More and more people are homeless, are at risk of homelessness, living in insecure accommodation, or trapped in financially unsustainable leases or mortgages that see them spiraling into massive debt.
“We need to see far more funding going to local housing support services to employ more staff, and we need to see immediate investment in the purchase or rental of existing properties for crisis housing.
“Casey residents can’t afford to wait for social housing properties to be built,” she said.
Casey is one of the fast-growing regions in Victoria with a population of more than 300,000 residents.
Casey Council’s draft 10-year Asset Plan expects to see the population swell to 550,000 by 2041.
Casey Council’s Affordable Housing Strategy adopted in December 2020 states an existing shortfall of more than 5500 affordable houses and the shortfall is forecast to grow to 10,200 affordable houses by 2041 without efforts to address the issues.
Homelessness and housing general manager of South East homelessness service WAYSS Shari McPhail said attention needed to go to the South East growth corridor’s “neglected“ public and community housing stocks.
“Officer South, Casey Fields and Clyde South have been named as part of the Precinct Structure Plans and new housing and jobs, however what this means for increasing the supply of social and affordable housing is yet to be understood,” she said.
She said the lack of mandatory inclusionary zoning was a “missed opportunity”.
“The inclusion of mandatory zoning would guarantee increased supply of social and affordable housing in all developments,” she said.
