Housing and Homelessness in our Region

Welcome to this month’s CEO Advocacy statement.

In past months I have talked about the work the St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra/Goulburn (the Society) does to support people of migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking backgrounds and I’m pleased to share that the ACT Government has committed to continuing its Discretionary Funding support for this cohort for this financial year.

We will continue to seek practical partnerships in this space so that we can deliver more in terms of funding and program delivery. We are extremely grateful to all who donate and volunteer with us, without you we are unable to do what we do.  

On the back of National Homelessness Week marked recently, I want to talk about the housing crisis and its impact on the upsurge in demand for homelessness services that has been the sharp focus of organisations such as ours across the ACT and adjoining regions.

Between the last two censuses of 2016 and 2023, every indicator of homelessness in the ACT has shown an upward trajectory.

On census night in 2021 in the ACT, the Australian Bureau of Statistics[1] counted 1777 people experiencing homelessness; 447 people living in 'severely' crowded dwellings; 882 people living in improvised dwellings, tents, or sleeping out and 126 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people experiencing homelessness. We suspect there will be more hidden homeless across our region who do not show up in official data sets. Women, young people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to fall within this group.

Families, young and old people are all faced with an increasingly high probability of experiencing homelessness in this perfect storm of the current cost of living and social housing crises. Homelessness, like any other manifestation of vulnerability, has not discriminated.

This year’s theme for National Homelessness Week was “It’s time to end homelessness”. The only way we can hope to achieve this is by having enough emergency accommodation and affordable social housing. Next month (September 2023), I will be participating in the stakeholder roundtable discussions being facilitated by the Department of Social Services on the development of a national housing and homelessness plan. I look forward to sharing the Society’s experience and insights, adding our voice to the call for a national approach to addressing homelessness. On a positive note, it’s gratifying to see the housing crisis being discussed seriously at both Commonwealth and State level.

This is long overdue - it is time to act.

The January 2023 Report on Government Services[2] indicates that in the ACT, as of June 30, 2022, there are:

• 10744 social housing dwellings (a decrease from the 11181 in 2018) and the lowest number since 2013. (Table 18A.3)
• 10233 low-income households’ dwelling in public housing facilities (Table 18A.22)
• 9730 households living in public housing paying less than the market rent. (Table 18A.5)
• 95.9% occupancy of public housing dwellings. (Table 18A.10)

There are a shocking 3059 households on the waiting list, of which 2076 are on the greatest needs list and it takes an average of 89 days (approximately 3 months) to turn around vacant public housing. (Table 18A.14). These figures show us that there is still a huge need for affordable public housing in the ACT. The demand from the wider community sector for more affordable housing is totally justifiable and supported by our own data and insights gathered from our frontline services. It is time to reclassify housing as a profitable investment into social investment.

The Society is pleased to read a note of commitment in the ACT Government’s 2023-24 Budget Statement[3], which states that “We (the ACT Government) are increasing housing stock across the board with a range of new initiatives designed to increase access, choice and affordability”. The Budget commits to renew 1,000 social housing properties and to build 400 new public housing homes by 2026–27 under the Growing and Renewing Public Housing program.

This is good news. However, it will be some time before we start to see the practical impact of this commitment. We will continue to monitor the implementation and be a willing partner in mitigating the many complex issues which contribute to the housing and homelessness challenges in our region. 

In the meantime, it will fall to front line services like ours to support the increasing number of those facing or living with homelessness. We are seeing an increase in the complexity of need in those presenting to us for support and to try to help these people, have increased the number of specialist case workers on our teams - additional government funding for these specialist support services is also needed.  

Under our Special Works program[4], we provide a range of services that support members of our community at risk or experiencing homelessness. These include the Blue Door Drop-in Centre, Night Patrol, Street to Home Program, Justice Housing Program, Community Inclusion Program, to list a few.

Our team of compassionate and dedicated volunteers and staff work tirelessly to address the challenging reality on our streets and across all the communities we serve.

If you would like to explore ways you or your organisation can work with us to help fill the gaps in services and resources, I would welcome the opportunity for a conversation.

Lucy Hohnen,
CEO, St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra/Goulburn

[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021), Estimating Homelessness: Census, ABS Website, accessed 15 August 2023.

[2] Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2023: G Housing and homelessness, Productivity

Commission, Australian Government, 2023. Accessed on August 1, 2023. 

[3] Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate, Australian Capital Territory Budget 22-23: Delivering for Canberrans: Now and into the Future, ACT Government. Accessed April 21, 2023  

[4] https://www.vinnies.org.au/act-surrounds/help/food-housing-clothing-services