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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (22 August) . . Page.. 3163 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

accommodate single people have been purchased or built for ACT Housing since receipt of the $6.6 million?

MR MOORE: I thank Ms Tucker for giving me some notice of the question. The understanding I had was that the question was about waiting times and I do not have numbers for her, but I will take that on notice. Since that announcement there has been a series of other announcements, the most significant being that we are going to move from bed-sitters and single-bedroom flats to a minimum standard of two-bedroom flats. That will have an impact as well. It is also important to understand that whenever money comes into Housing from the sale of assets it must remain in Housing under our agreements with the Commonwealth, and that happens.

I can provide you with some waiting times, if you would like, in terms of accommodation for single persons. For a bed-sitter, it is about 5.2 months. For a one-bedroom flat, it is very high at about 22 months. I imagine that that is because we are removing that stock. For a two-bedroom flat, it is now 10 months, for a two-bedroom house, 27 months; for one-bedroom older persons accommodation, 18 months; and for two-bedroom older persons accommodation, 15 months.

There are priority possibilities under those circumstances as well if applicants are in ill health or have a disability, if their accommodation is inadequate, if they are suffering severe financial difficulty, if they are in an environment of domestic violence, if they are facing imminent evection from the current accommodation or if they are experiencing a similar problem.

We have put a significant amount of effort into the single share home scheme. The scheme has been reinvigorated following an expression of interest process and 19 properties are to be managed by Centacare, Canberra Community Housing for Young People, and Transitional Accommodation Services. The scheme enables single people to share houses. Similarly, in the 2001-02 budget context, we have the three boarding houses option, an initiative which responds to recommendations of both the youth housing task force and the poverty task group, with accommodation being provided for certain people 16 to 21 years of age and for single people aged 20 to 30, with particular emphasis on mental illness. Also, we are doing some work at Ainslie Village at the moment to see whether we can expand the long-term accommodation.

There are a series of initiatives there, but I apologise for not having the specific numbers for Ms Tucker. That was not how we understood the question to be. I will take that on notice.

MS TUCKER: I appreciate that. I have a supplementary question. You may have to get back to me on it as well. What proportion of the people currently on the list of applicants are single?

MR MOORE: I will take that on notice as well and get back to you. I am conscious of standing order 118A, which requires that to be done before next Thursday.

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