The wait is over and the Victorian Budget has been released. What is good? What is bad? Where does more work need to be done?
It includes funding for every single election commitment from last year’s State Election – which means that the funding to install air conditioning in high rise public housing has been committed, with work due to be completed by mid-2027.
This is a crucial improvement for people who are living in the high-rise apartment buildings. We know that temperatures can rise in these buildings substantially during the height of summer, having a negative impact on the physical and mental health of residents as well as making it difficult for children to concentrate at school following sleepless nights due to extreme heat.
As positive as this is, high rise apartments make up only around 12% of public housing properties, and there are no additional support for other public housing renters announced in this year’s budget.
The commitment to install air conditioning would have been well-matched with the joint VPTA and VCOSS proposal to install solar panels on existing public housing homes – a move which would save households up to $539 every year in reduced energy bills and close the equity gap in access to renewable energy in the home for public housing renters, who remain the last group of Victorians to access assistance for the installation of home solar. We will keep advocating for this project to be funded.
Additionally, critical funding has been extended to keep Homelessness to a Home going.
At the VPTA, we’re busier than we have ever been.
This is reflected in the budget papers by the projected increase in average waiting times to access social housing – which has climbed to 20.2 months for those with a priority application for family violence reasons – up from 17 months last financial year.
More broadly, the Government projects that priority applicants across the board can expect to wait 17 months to access housing support – two months longer than last financial year.
Of course, these averages are just that – averages. Our team regularly supports people who have been waiting much longer – often several years – in precarious situations due to the chronic lack of public housing stock in Victoria.
Despite that – there is still no plan to grow publicly owned and managed housing stock.
Finally, satisfaction with the quality of non-urgent maintenance works completed is expected to fall to 52, well below the target of 80.
Everyday, across Victoria, we continue to work with renters and applicants to address housing issues – and we’re not going to stop.