Page 546 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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housing, with support as needed through supportive accommodation for children and young people who can’t live at home but need ongoing support … social or affordable private rental housing for young people who can live independently.
That is from the Mission Australia child and youth homelessness report.
The flipside of homelessness is providing housing. You cannot solve homelessness without housing specifically and, most specifically, most importantly, affordable housing. I remind members here—I have spoken about it before but I am most happy to remind them again—that in June last year former Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said that the lack of progress on affordable housing was the single biggest regret of his time as Chief Minister. The single biggest regret in his time as Chief Minister was the lack of progress on affordable housing. I agree with him; it is a disgrace. This government has failed to adequately implement measures to address the lack of affordable housing in the ACT.
There are many actions in that affordable housing action plan aimed at making housing more affordable in the ACT, but I guess it is common for this government to make plans and release strategies and have all sorts of lovely documents which never go anywhere, which never do anything. But whenever anyone asks for something to be done, they say, “Oh, we’re working on a strategy,” or, “We’re having a plan,” or, “We’re having a consultation.” What we actually need is for something to be done.
There are women and children sleeping in cars. There are young people couch surfing—thousands of them—in the ACT. This is not just about talk, this is not about writing documents, it is about actually doing something to address the issues. What is the government actually doing to implement their affordable housing action plan? It is great to have an affordable housing action plan but it is only useful if you are actually going to do something about it.
I am hoping today the government will listen and give really thoughtful consideration to the problems we are facing here in the ACT. We do not have an enormous problem with rough sleepers, thank goodness, here in the ACT, partly because rough sleeping is dangerous, it is very bad for your health, it leads to higher mortality rates and the weather is not good for rough sleepers. But we have more than our fair share of people who are stuck in the homelessness service system and for whom there are no exits. They are churning through homelessness services.
I know there are some in the homelessness sector who hate the use of that term “churning through homelessness services” but I tell you where I borrowed that term from. I borrowed that from the federal Minister for Homelessness at the time, Brendan O’Connor, who talked about churning through homelessness services, moving from one to another, because there are no exit points. That is what is happening here in the ACT.
We need to stop talking about it and actually do something. That is why I brought this motion today calling on the government to develop and implement a realistic framework to address Canberra’s long public housing waiting lists and transfer lists, calling on the government to develop and implement a realistic framework by June
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