Amid a "staggering" spike in demand for homelessness services in the Goulburn Valley region, BeyondHousing CEO Celia Adams is calling on the Federal Government to urgently invest in social housing.
Speaking on the first day of Homelessness Week 2021, Ms Adams said the crisis would only worsen if it continued on its current trajectory.
“The numbers are staggering,” Ms Adams said.
BeyondHousing assisted 1488 households in 2020-21, a 17.3 per cent increase on the previous year.
Additionally, specialist support teams helped 2266 households across all client services - 6.2 per cent increase - including people who needed help to find and keep a home in the private rental market.
“Add this to increased health, economic and social challenges faced by vulnerable people, then it’s frightening to realise how close we stand to the precipice of an even greater housing and homelessness disaster in this region,” Ms Adams said.
But there were clear solutions to the problems facing the Goulburn Valley, according to Ms Adams.
“Rates of homelessness did not increase because we don’t know how to solve the problem: we do,” Ms Adams said.
“People who are housed are not homeless.
“Having enough housing - in the form people need it - is critical.”
There was a staggering 38 per cent increase in the number of people who said their mental health was a reason they were without housing.
Almost half of all clients, 47 per cent, had a previous mental health diagnosis.
“People with mental illness are more at risk of homelessness, due to increased vulnerability, difficulty sustaining employment, and withdrawing from friends and family,” Ms Adams said.
Additionally, close to one in three BeyondHousing clients said they were homeless because they were fleeing family violence.
Ms Adams hoped this year’s homelessness numbers would motivate federal leaders to “ramp up the resources for the evidence-based, housing-focused solutions to homelessness” that were “proven to work”.
“Homelessness doesn’t have to be inevitable,” she said.
“We can make an impact by increasing the construction of affordable housing at a scale that meets the needs of the community.”
BeyondHousing is currently constructing or planning construction of 160 new homes in the next year, using its own funds in addition to funding from the Peter and Lyndy White Foundation and the Victorian Government.
“But even at the current rate of construction we could not provide enough homes for the people and families already on the lengthy waitlist, let alone respond to the dire shortage of private rentals in the region,” Ms Adams said.
Housing stress was “only going to worsen” for people on low and middle incomes, Ms Adams said.
“We are simply saying to the Federal Government that we can't wait anymore for a long-term systematic investment in social housing,” she said.
“There are so many families, so many households that are waiting for affordable securable housing.”