Safe, secure, accessible and affordable housing are the key foundations on which social and economic wellbeing are built.
A recent report shows that 76% of renters are living under housing stress, meaning that more that 30% of their income is spent on their home.
As a result 63% of these households are sitting in the cold, scared to turn on the heater they can’t afford to run.
54% are skipping medical appointments to cope with housing costs and 54% have skipped meals or sought food from food banks or charities.
We can’t continue to rely on the private market to meet our state’s diverse housing needs.
This housing crisis has proven time and time again that ‘market solutions’ are failing.
Low-income earners can afford to buy less than 3% of homes but make up 20% of the population.
Over 122,000 in Australia are homeless on any given night, 640,000 are in need of social housing.
The market can’t provide what these people need, and neither can the current Labor government.
Current policies are based on the assumption that most people will own a home, and that is simply no longer the case in Australia.
Housing affordability is actually the worst its ever been since records began.
Over the last year, house prices have increased by 6.6%, which equates to about $50,000.
Only around 11% of people currently renting could afford to buy a house, and median income earners in Victoria could only afford 12% of houses currently on the market.
Beyond that, to even start looking at purchasing a home, it takes the average household over five years to save for a deposit.
More and more, the bank of mum and dad is becoming one of the biggest mortgage lenders in our country.
This entrenches intergenerational wealth and means that if you don’t come from a wealthy family, you’re even less likely to ever be able to own your own home.
The People’s Commission into Australia’s Housing Crisis recommends the following policies be put in place as soon as possible to ease the housing crisis: Invest in social housing, recognise housing as a human right, freeze rent increases, abolish capital gains and negative gearing, first nations housing justice.
These are all policies that The Greens have pushed for and continue to argue for both federally and at a state level.
Perhaps with the ever-growing chorus of voices of the crisis including both eye watering stats and heart rendering first person accounts.
The government will finally agree to sit down at the table with us and discuss what needs to be done to fix housing in our state and in our country.
