Will $66m cut city's social housing wait list? Government dodges questions

The Standard reported in September the government had plunged more than $100 million into building new social housing in the south-west, including $54 million in Warrnambool to create 126 new houses. The government said the Warrnambool figure had since increased to $66 million to build 133 houses.

"Warrnambool is a priority area under the Big Housing Build and was allocated a $25 million minimum investment guarantee - which has already been exceeded - to create modern, accessible, energy efficient homes for people who need these most," a government spokesperson said.

But in September the government had only built 20 of the promised houses in Warrnambool despite having spent more than half the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build budget across the state. The government did not provide an updated figure for completed builds.

Some of the existing public housing stock has had to be demolished during the program, either to make way for the new builds, or because it was in such poor condition. As a result, Warrnambool's public housing stock has only increased by 15 houses since the start of the build while Moyne Shire's has risen by just three.

The Big Housing Build aims to increase total housing stock across Victoria by 10 per cent, which would mean an increase of about 100 houses in Warrnambool, factoring in demolitions. The Standard asked the government whether it was on track to meet the target but it did not say.

The government has pledged to build 61 homes in Glenelg, 46 homes in Southern Grampians, 22 homes in Corangamite, and 13 homes in Moyne, but as with Warrnambool it refused to say how many houses were being demolished in each area and would not confirm the net increase. All it would say was the total stock had increased since 2020 and that numbers would fluctuate as old homes were demolished.

Opposition housing spokesman and Polwarth MP Richard Riordan said it was misleading for the government to trumpet the new builds without "coming clean" about demolitions.

"This is really a massive mismanagement of the government's housing spend over a long period," Mr Riordan said.

"The government has not maintained its housing stock for a decade, so now it's a big maintenance catch up, not a housing spend.

"You can't talk about building 12,000 new homes across the state when in actual fact you're adding 2000 at most."

A spokesperson said there could be more houses coming to the region under the recently announced $1 billion Regional Housing Fund, which would build 1300 extra houses across country Victoria.

"The new homes will include a mix of social and affordable housing - and we're working with councils, regional partnerships, and local communities to determine the right mix of stock and locations for each region," the spokesperson said.

In addition to refusing to reveal the net change in available housing stock, the government has also declined to say whether its housing programs are reducing public housing waiting lists in the south-west.

Data from Housing Victoria showed the region's public housing waiting lists have been growing year on year.

As of June 30, 2023, there were 843 families on the priority access list for Warrnambool, and another 494 on the register of interest list for a total of 1337. The priority list is reserved for people who are homeless, escaping family violence, require significant support, or have urgent health needs, while the register of interest is for people who don't meet those urgent requirements but want to move to social housing for economic and other reasons.

Even if the government did achieve its target of an increase of 100 homes in Warrnambool - which is impossible to determine from the information it will provide - the increase would meet barely a tenth of the need in the highest priority cases, let alone those who are struggling to make ends meet in the private rental market.

The situation is similar across the south-west with 510 on the Portland waiting lists, 318 in Hamilton, 260 in Port Fairy, 235 in Camperdown and 177 in Koroit. People can put up to five location preferences on their application, so there may be some double-up in the figures but they are broadly representative of demand in the region.

Mr Riordan said the government needed to be transparent about its figures to provide a proper picture of the public housing crisis.

"The public housing waiting lists are growing by thousands of people each year and yet the government won't give us a straight answer about how many houses are available," he said.

"We know there are thousands of houses sitting vacant because they haven't had basic routine maintenance but they won't come clean on how many there are."

The government said more than 7000 households had moved into social housing during 2022-23, a 29 per cent increase on the previous financial year.

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell said the lack of transparency was "standard operating procedure for this government". She said there were multiple housing proposals "sitting on the Planning Minister's desk", that would bring hundreds of houses to Warrnambool at a stroke of a pen.

"If the government really wanted people to have a roof over their heads why aren't they signing off on those applications?" Ms Britnell said.

"How long can they tell us that they care but keep sitting on their hands?"