Ballarat housing services call for thousands of new homes to ease homelessness

The problem was highlighted during Homelessness Week in August, where origami houses were folded to represent the 6600 houses needed to be built per year to tackle the problem in Victoria.

Across each age group, there is a struggle for people trying to enter the private rental market, with the waiting list for assisted housing in Victoria at more than 67,000.

Service providers like Uniting continue to advocate for more affordable and social housing.

Uniting Ballarat senior manager for homelessness Adam Liversage said to tackle the housing shortage just from people sleeping rough or living homeless, the Central Highlands region would need 4500 new houses.

"Uniting are holding up to 300 people in our priority accommodation, or support," he said

"The Street2Home program is working with 75 to 100 rough sleepers, the public housing waiting list for the Central Highlands is around 3000 to 3500.

"We'd need 4000 to 4500 (houses) in the Central Highlands."

Mr Liversage said Uniting works with real estate agents to help get clients into housing but it can be a struggle.

"We've got two programs which have fantastic relationships with local real estate agents and also private landlords as well," he said.

Clients can also go through training with local real estate agents around tenancy skills and living independently.

Cafs (Child and Family Services) case worker Jack Weibgen said due to mental health issues people often needed single person units.

Mr Weibgen said often young people will be dismissed for a rental as soon as a property manager hears they are working with Cafs. He said hearing about that was "disappointing".

One example included a couple who looked for a rental for a year, and applied to 110 rentals.

"They got their eleventh application," he said.

Mr Liversage said the demand in the rental market made it hard, as well as increasing costs.

The 6600 origami houses on the steps of parliament was about showing, in a peaceful manner, the need for housing.

Uniting and other service providers from across the state placed the houses on the steps, including Mr Liversage.

"It was really great to see the acknowledgement from our local MPs and take time out of Parliament.to come and talk to us," Mr Liversage said.

"We're hoping to see commitment, to see a long-term housing plan," he said.

"We don't need a short-term plan, we want a 10-year plan to build enough houses to effectively end homelessness across the state."

A Victorian Government spokesperson said ahead of the Housing Statement - to be released later this year, and in addition to Big Housing Build - the government was providing a new $1 billion Regional Housing Fund to deliver more than 1300 new homes across regional 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 Ballarat, more than $125 million has been invested under the Big Housing Build and other social housing programs with 138 new homes completed and a further 223 under construction.

Federal member for Ballarat Catherine King said the federal government was working towards more affordable and social housing.

"It's devastating to hear of families sleeping rough locally, particularly in winter," Ms King said.

"We know that housing and homelessness challenges can't be fixed overnight, but we are working every day and investing billions of dollars into helping more people find a safe and affordable place to call home.

The federal government has put $1.7 billion on the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, including a $67.5 million one-off homelessness boost to the states and territories.

Youth homelessness has also received $91.7 million through the Reconnect program over the next three years.

A $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator was also announced by the federal government in June and is expected to deliver thousands of new social homes across Australia along with a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund for 30,000 new social and affordable homes in the fund's first five years.

Four thousand homes will be dedicated to family and domestic violence victims or older women at risk of homelessness.

The federal government also announced Help to Buy program on Wednesday, August 16 to help 40,000 low-to-middle income earners buy a house.

Mr Liversage joked service providers were the only workforce who's goal was to render themselves useless.

"It does show the commitment that we're actually trying to advocate ourselves out of a job," he said.

"It shows the passion of the workforce across the sector."

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