Uniting Ballarat trying to house hundreds in need

Uniting Ballarat senior manager for homelessness Adam Liversage said there are some 80 people sleeping rough around Ballarat, and more people coming to Uniting for support.

"We turned away 1000 people last year," he said.

"We didn't have to staffing resources to be able to meet the needs of those people."

In the past financial year, Uniting in Ballarat was able to help 1450 people, despite being budgeted for 1200.

Mr Liversage said they were able to make their budget work but could always do with more funds.

"All of our homeless programs were refunded," he said.

"When talking about our homelessness entry point we could do with a lot more funding to be able to provide the response to people presenting as homeless."

The waitlist for social housing in Victoria has increased in the latest dashboard numbers - for March 2023, there was 58,131 new applicants, up from 57,672 in December 2022.

United has 133 transitional houses in Ballarat and with asset properties and they can help house a further 250 to 300 people.

Mr Liversage said the need for public housing in Ballarat is increasing.

"We have two lists for public housing. One for over 25 (years old) and one for under," he said.

"We have 190 households on the over 25 list, 88 of those are families. Our youth list ... we have 68 and 17 of those are families."

Mr Liversage said the private rental assistance program is another area where Uniting are getting more calls.

"Particularly single elderly people are at risk because they can't afford their rent anymore," he said.

"People are selling their investment properties because they can't afford the mortgage due to interest rate hikes, so people are getting issued notice to vacate.

"We are starting to see a real increase, especially those on Centrelink or working part-time."

Mr Liversage said families are at the stage where they are choosing between rent or feeding their family.

Regional Victoria's median rent is $350 per week for units, and $430 for houses.

Mr Liversage said Uniting has a number of programs to support people living homeless.

They also have people working on the ground to offer basics like blankets for areas across Ballarat and Western Victoria, where people are sleeping rough.

The cost of living crisis has wider impacts, Mr Liversage said, like more relationship breakdowns, leading to family violence and putting families on the street.

"I've been here 15 years and this is the highest I've seen the homelessness numbers in Ballarat," he said.

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