“I’ll give you shelter from the storm” is a famous opening line from Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” (1975). It feels especially pointed during Canberra’s cold winter months, when it is even more disturbing than usual to think of people sleeping rough in our city.
Early August marked Homelessness Awareness Week, although awareness sounds like a modest ambition when what’s really needed is action. The week highlights the impacts of homelessness and pushes for better housing and support solutions. We also just had Census night, which will eventually provide us with a clearer picture of homelessness in Canberra. In a city as ostensibly affluent as Canberra, it is confronting that homelessness persists, driven by anything from domestic and family violence to mental illness to financial pressures and much else besides.
The flip side of homelessness is housing, paired with wraparound services. Canberra is fortunate to have many wonderful homelessness services (a shoutout here to the Early Morning Centre, where I am proud to be an Ambassador). Which is why it was so disappointing to learn recently about the high vacancy rate in our public housing stock. Currently, 588 public housing dwellings sit empty, while more than 3,000 people languish on the public housing waiting list.
I recently spoke with Independent MLA Thomas Emerson about this issue. He’s been vocal on it, together with a group of big-hearted locals who have raised the idea of community assistance to get vacant public housing properties ready for occupation, as he has been speaking about it and raised, with a group of wonderful locals, the possibility of community assistance to get some vacant public housing properties ready for occupation under a proposal to renovate (to start with) 20 homes by Christmas.
Well done to real estate agent Jonny Warren, who has himself experienced homelessness, ACT Chair of Housing for All Australians (and former ACT Australian of the Year) Jo Farrell and other big-hearted locals behind this idea. I love the initiative – although it troubles me that the community should have to step in to help the government fulfil its own basic obligations.
This is a government that seems to find money readily enough for its favoured pet projects, yet apparently can’t get hundreds of vacant public housing properties fit for habitation. The ACT Government is the landlord of these homes and carries an ongoing duty to keep them liveable, both while tenants are in residence and after they leave. Something is clearly badly wrong. Is it a lack of priority? Poor process? Under-resourcing within the housing directorate? Probably only insiders know for certain. What we do know is that some people wait years on the public housing waitlist. Surely it’s time the government said to these vulnerable Canberrans, in the words of Bob Dylan, “I’ll give you shelter.”
You can listen to my full conversation with Thomas Emerson, Member for Kurrajong in the ACT Legislative Assembly, on the Bite-sized politics podcast on Spotify.
