The social housing waitlist has once again hit a new high, with 5,767 applications registered on the Homes Tasmania update. These applicants are waiting a record time for housing support, all while the Liberals fail to act on dealing with some of the most basic causes of housing stress.
5,767 applications were recorded on Homes Tasmania’s Housing Register at the end of July. It’s increased by more than 100 applications since the end of June, and 9.9% in the past 12 months.
Thanks to figures obtained by the Greens during Estimates, we know there’s almost double the number of people waiting for homes than there are applications. The number of individual Tasmanians waiting for a government home in this state is likely close to 10,000 and shockingly, 1 in 3 of them are children.
Month by month we continue to see the public housing waitlist increase and we know that applicants languish on the list in despair.
The Liberal Government’s lack of action to bring down the housing waitlist is disappointing and distressing. They’re not building enough homes to keep up with the rising numbers of Tasmanians who can’t afford a place to live and they refuse to take action on the issues that push private tenants onto the public housing waitlist.
There’s so much the Liberals could be doing to decrease the number of Tasmanians needing to apply for public housing – from reining in Airbnb to freezing rising rents. But instead, they’re continuing to fail to act.
The Greens will keep pushing to make this government to realise it has a duty to ensure every Tasmanian has a roof over their head.
