Today, the ACT Greens have announced an election initiative to establish a dedicated fund to fill gaps in housing options for people facing homelessness and to explore a publicly owned affordable retirement village.
"The ACT Greens have an ambitious but achievable vision for Canberra's future where homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring," said Deputy Leader of the ACT Greens, Rebecca Vassarotti.
"But at the moment there are not enough public homes, meaning frontline services are stuck with the impossible task of supporting people to move out of emergency accommodation while there is a massive shortfall of affordable places to live.
"Expanding frontline services is essential, but services alone can't fix the homelessness crisis. We need to invest in building more secure and affordable public homes, and invest in services to support people when homelessness happens.
"With this community's support, we'll get to work on fixing the housing crisis, combining our transformative plan to build 10,000 affordable public homes with an initiative to fund gaps in frontline services through a new Homelessness Services Project Fund.
"This new community sector fund will target gaps in current homelessness services, to deliver needs-based accommodation for different people in Canberra.
"Any political party that wants to credibly tackle homelessness this election must present a bold and transformative plan to build more affordable public homes as well as support frontline services, if they are to truly address the homelessness crisis.
"At the moment, the Greens are the only party offering this vision. We want to put the housing crisis to bed for good, and my message to Canberrans is this: all of this is possible, if you vote for it on election day next month."
In this term of Government, the ACT Greens delivered record funding increases to homelessness services for Canberrans.
Today's announcement by the ACT Greens will:
- Establish housing as a human right by law, meaning government has a legislated responsibility to end homelessness
- Co-design a youth homelessness strategy with young people to ensure a targeted approach to breaking the cycle of homelessness early
- Explore establishing a public retirement village to address the increasing unaffordability of retirement options for older Canberrans
- Create a 'Homelessness Services Project Fund' to identify new models of homelessness support that can more quickly address immediate needs
- Support the work of Aboriginal Community Controlled Housing Organisations to meet the housing expectations of First Nations people
ACT Greens Candidate for Brindabella, Sam Nugent, said that while homelessness services play a crucial role in addressing the housing crisis, the best way to fix the housing crisis is to build way more public homes.
"A couple of years ago, after going through an expensive divorce, I found myself working homeless," said ACT Greens Candidate for Brindabella, Sam Nugent.
"Despite being on a comfortable income, I was forced to sleep in my car or under my desk. Unfortunately, this is a harsh reality facing more and more Canberrans.
"As a candidate with lived experience of homelessness, I can say hand on heart that the thing that would have had the biggest impact on my experience is more affordable public homes, which is why I'm proud to be running for the ACT Greens.
"At the moment more and more older Canberrans are staring down the barrel of homelessness, particularly older women as they begin to retire and their superannuation just won't cut it to cover the increasing cost of living.
"As part of our plan to build 10,000 more affordable public homes, we will investigate setting up a public retirement village to address the increasing unaffordability of retirement, and give older Canberrans more affordable housing choices.
