CHIA Vic has recently made its submission to the Victorian Government ahead of the 2023-24 Budget, which is set to be delivered in May. We’ve identified four areas of focus that we want to see the government deliver outcomes for to help grow and strengthen the social housing sector and system: securing a long-term pipeline for social housing growth; ending chronic homelessness by investing in Housing First; reducing the costs of homelessness through investment in preventative support, and; continuing to invest in the infrastructure of the social and affordable housing system.
Headlining the submission is a call – repeated from our 2022 Victorian Election Platform – for a transformation of the Social Housing Growth Fund into a Social Housing Investment Fund with an upfront injection of $6 billion. Using this capital and its returns over the next ten years, CHIA Vic has modelling that shows over 20,000 new homes could be built in that time – around a third of those needed to return Victoria’s proportion of social housing to 4.5 per cent as recommended by Infrastructure Victoria. We also suggest some critical policy levers available to government that could help secure long-term growth without the need of a Budget commitment.
The remainder of the submission looks at some critical government programs – e.g. From Homelessness to a Home in the homelessness system, to Aboriginal Housing Victoria’s More Than a Landlord program – that need to reviewed or properly funded and expanded upon. Under the theme of investing in the infrastructure of the sector, we highlight the ways in which government can capitalise on and extend the transformation that has begun with the Big Housing Build, to make sure the momentum from this significant investment is not lost.
To read our submission in full, click here