Victoria's peak body for community housing is encouraging the State Government to aim higher and boost the number of social homes across its public housing redevelopment sites, after proving that it's capable of smashing its own benchmark.
In announcing the approval of more than 500 social and affordable homes across three public housing redevelopments, the government has confirmed Barak Beacon alone will see a 46 per cent increase in social housing on site.
This is well up from the government's own overall target of boosting social housing by 10 per cent across 44 ageing high-rise public housing towers.
Community Housing Industry Association Victoria chief executive Sarah Toohey called on the government to set new targets for social housing on all redevelopment sites.
"The Victorian Government has set a target to boost the number of social housing dwellings by 10 per cent when redeveloping public housing towers. With the redevelopment at Barak Beacon, the government has shown that they can smash this target, increasing social housing by 46 per cent. This result should set the bar for government ambition in future redevelopments," Ms Toohey said.
"These additional social homes will be life-changing for Victorians struggling to keep a roof over their heads. But there are so many more social and affordable homes that must be built in Victoria to meet demand. We know more than 146,000 Victorian households don't have their housing needs met where they're experiencing housing stress, homelessness or living in overcrowded homes.
"We call on the Victorian Government to boost the number of social homes across all of the public housing sites that are earmarked for redevelopment. Building more safe, affordable, well-located social housing dwellings in Victoria is essential in the fight to ease our state's housing crisis."
