A Canberra campaign offering to renovate 20 vacant public housing properties for free needs access to the homes within four weeks if it is to get homeless people housed by Christmas, the organiser, real estate agent Jonny Warren, says.

Mr Warren is leading the 20 Homes by Christmas campaign, which is asking the ACT Government to identify 20 vacant public housing properties that need repairs before they can be occupied. Canberra tradespeople, suppliers and businesses would donate labour, materials and project management expertise, while St Vincent de Paul would furnish the completed homes. The campaign is backed by Housing All Australians ACT, ACT Shelter, and independent MLA Thomas Emerson.

Housing ACT has yet to allocate any of the 20 properties.

“Our reality is: we’re going to need them in the next four weeks,” Mr Warren said. “If it’s after the four weeks, we’re going to be really struggling to get these 20 houses in [before Christmas].”

Mr Warren met with the ACT Government last week, and is seeking another meeting next week.

“We need Housing ACT to commit to this,” Mr Warren said. “We don’t know what the extent of the works are. We’re calling for this next meeting to get this across the line. We don’t want to leave that meeting and that venue until we’ve got those 20 houses to work on.”

When the campaign was launched, the ACT had 588 vacant public housing dwellings, including 285 needing maintenance or upgrades. At the same time, 3,652 approved applicants were on the public housing waiting list. The average wait was more than five months for priority housing and more than five years for standard housing.

Mr Warren said the figures were frustrating, particularly because some long-vacant properties needed only cleaning and relatively minor maintenance.

“It’s not a huge job – we have to lend our hand to make this process faster and get these people off the street,” he said.

The campaign was inspired partly by Mr Warren’s work with Vinnies, including seeing a young woman and her four-year-old sleeping in their car.

For Mr Warren, homelessness is also personal. As a teenager, he became addicted to ice, and became homeless before rebuilding his life and eventually going into real estate. He said his mother found him while she was dying from cancer, and became his “saving grace”.

“A lot of people don’t know that you can get out of it and become a business owner or find a new path or a new journey,” Mr Warren said.

Mr Warren said he wanted to use his experience to encourage homeless people.

“If you’re going through this, it’s OK,” he said. “You need to find the power to get through it. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

“People in these situations, nine out of 10 times, are the most incredible people; they’ve just had a bit of bad luck go their way.”

The campaign has received nearly 200 responses from people wanting to help, including offers from Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne. Some businesses have even offered to bring tradespeople from interstate.

“We’ve got plenty of people wanting to help,” Mr Warren said. “It’s amazing when the community gets out there and the voices start to echo. If we want to help people get off the streets, everyone gets together.”

Mr Warren said people experiencing hardship had also contacted him. A woman experiencing domestic violence told him his initiative had motivated her to keep going.

“That makes my day,” Mr Warren said.

Mr Warren also plans to establish the JW Foundation, which would hold charity events and galas, and raise money for the campaign.

“Once we get these homes, then we’ll reach out to everyone that’s emailed, called, messaged, and we’ll take it from there,” Mr Warren said.

“But at the moment, we just need people to rally behind us and keep spreading the word to put pressure on Housing ACT.”

For Mr Warren, the goal is ultimately to hand the keys to people who otherwise might still be without a home at Christmas.

“It would be so fulfilling: giving them the keys, making sure that they’ve got the furniture there; that they’ve got a house before Christmas,” Mr Warren said. “It would just mean the world. At the end of the day, if we can help one person, 20 people, 100 people, it all starts from somewhere.”

Canberra Daily approached the ACT Government for comment.