Thomas Sharpe used to be a successful businessman and proud owner of a home; today, he shares a room with a dozen other people as he waits for social housing assistance from the government.
He is one of the more than 57,000 people in New South Wales who have applied for social housing and have been placed on a waiting list, where they might expect to wait anywhere from five to ten years.
The newly elected state government is coming under increasing pressure to find a solution to the problem of social housing.
I can’t function properly without a roof over my head. I can’t be outside. “I need to make a complete 180 with my life,” Mr Sharpe remarked.
“If you had told me a year ago that I would be living in this situation right now, I would have laughed at you,” the speaker says.
He stated, “It’s disheartening because the more people you meet, the more you hear that the wait time is getting longer and longer.” “It’s disheartening because the wait time is getting longer and longer.”
Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel will take a lot of effort.
The supply of social housing in New South Wales has yet to keep up with demand.
University of New South Wales According to housing policy expert Professor Hal Pawson, New South Wales has added 7,000 new social dwellings in the ten years leading up to the year 2020.
According to him, that is less than a third of the number required to keep up with the increase in the population.
When property purchases and demolitions are taken into account, the early briefings, according to the government of NSW, show that the entire stock of social housing decreased by 300 units when the previous Coalition government was in power.
The annual rate of increase in rent in the nation’s capital cities is approximately 12%, which is significantly higher than inflation.
According to Professor Pawson, “We are in a really quite unusual situation, and it’s hard to see that those stresses are going to be relieved anytime soon.” “We are in a situation that is quite unusual,”
Claymore was a public housing estate located in Western Sydney, approximately 40 kilometres from the Sydney Central Business District.
In the 1970s, the state government of New South Wales constructed 1,100 affordable housing units there.
However, the previous Coalition government sold it in 2013 and is currently being dismantled.
Claymore, according to Professor Pawson, needed help with the heritage.
“Concentrations of highly disadvantaged people, especially in remote locations, it’s not a good mix,” Professor Pawson said. “It’s not a good mix at all.”
However, he stated that anything that decreases social housing stock, which is already quite limited, could be more desirable.
“It is a way of tackling the problems of places that have become a huge liability for state governments.” “It is a way of tackling the problems of places.”
“We are in a situation in which we already have a huge shortage of social housing, so a project that reduces it quite considerably isn’t helping us with that,” said the official. “We are in desperate need of social housing.”
However, with new governments at the state and federal levels, campaigners are hopeful that there will be a willingness to address the issues with social housing.
The government of Albanese is attempting to get its Housing Australia Future Fund, which is worth $10 billion, approved by parliament.
Within the first five years, it would result in construction of 30,000 brand-new social and affordable housing properties.
The chief executive officer of Shelter NSW, John Engler, stated that dramatic action is required, or more people may find themselves without homes.
Mr Engler stated, “Once upon a time, we may have thought that the lower end of the private market may have been able to accommodate people; however, more and more, that is no longer the case.”
“We’ve almost reached a point where what’s being offered compared to what’s being needed is too out of kilter; it’s reached a crisis point,” said the president of the United States.
According to what Professor Pawson had to say about the matter, “A plan is what we need. Not incremental, cherry-pick, mini policies here and there.”
“It requires both levels of government to work together in a much more purposeful way and with much more ambition than we’ve seen in the last decade,” the author writes. “It’s been a decade since we’ve seen that.”
Rose Jackson, the Minister for Housing in New South Wales, admitted that the situation was “dire.”
“We’re in an unfortunate place in NSW,” Ms Jackson remarked.
“It is obvious that the overall housing market, not just social housing or the rental crisis, is the one that is under really significant stress.”
A review of government-owned land that might be suitable for construction is now being carried out.
“We have a lot of land holdings that can be activated for housing,” she said. “We have a lot of potential.”
“We will need to see more density in areas that can support that, and this needs to be done fairly all across Sydney.”
