By Jamie Crosby, CEO Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare
A home gives children security and a place to belong.
Anti-poverty week is a chance to talk about what housing poverty looks like and what the gaps in our systems mean for the safety and stability of children and young people and their families.
Whoever forms government after the state election on 28 November needs to rapidly expand social and affordable housing. And they must measure success by whether children are living in safe, stable homes.
For many Victorian children, housing insecurity means changing schools, losing friends, and not knowing where they will be sleeping next. It can cause trauma and emotional distress and leave children feeling unsafe and disconnected. It might also contribute to lasting physical and mental health problems. When rent takes up most of the household budget, families cut back on food and healthcare. The strain on family relationships can be profound.
Being without a home can lead to child protection involvement. If a family has no safe and stable place to live, children can be placed in care. If children living in care can’t return home to their families because a parent can’t find stable housing, they remain in care longer than is needed. These families are separated for reasons that have nothing to do with whether their parents can safely care for them.
At the other end of the care experience, around one in three young people leaving care become homeless within a year. When we look at young people who are homeless in Victoria, two in three have had prior contact with child protection.
The private rental market offers no way out. In March, Anglicare’s Rental Affordability Snapshot looked at over 15,000 rentals advertised across the state on a particular weekend. Just 121 were affordable and suitable for families living on income support payments. Only one was affordable for a single parent. There was nothing for a single person on JobSeeker or Youth Allowance. There was just one property in the whole state for a single person on the Disability Support Pension.
So, where do they go?
Social housing is meant to be the safety net. But Victoria has the lowest share of social housing of any state at 3% of households against a national average of 4.1%. Almost 40,000 households are on the priority waiting list. More than 3000 young people under 25 are on the register waiting for a home of their own. In the year to March the waiting list grew by more than 7% while social housing stock grew by just 2.5%.
People fleeing family violence who are given priority access still wait an average of more than 17 months for a home. For a mother and her children that can mean a refuge, a motel, a caravan, or going back to an unsafe home. It might mean living in a car.
Often the homes that are available don’t suit the families who need them. Social housing stock is skewed heavily toward single-person dwellings. Families, and particularly large or multigenerational households, face acute shortages for homes which are big enough.
The Victorian Government has made some significant investments. It’s $5.3 billion Big Housing Build committed to 12,000 new social and affordable homes across Melbourne and regional Victoria. Later programs, including the Regional Housing Fund and the Social Housing Growth Fund, have lifted total investment to more than $8 billion and around 16,000 homes. That’s welcome, but housing advocates say Victoria needs almost 8000 new homes to be built every year for the next decade, around 80,000 in total, just to match the national average. Current plans to redevelop Melbourne’s 44 ageing public housing towers might promise more social homes in the long run, but in the short term the plan has been criticised for relocating thousands of residents, putting even more pressure on existing housing.
While building lots of one-bedroom units might look great on paper, this still leaves families in over-crowded accommodation or separated indefinitely. Success should be judged by what it means for children – how many family-sized and accessible homes are in the pipeline, how long are families waiting, and is a lack of housing keeping children from going home, or forcing families apart?
This is why the Centre and its members are calling on every party and candidate to rapidly expand social and affordable housing stock so children and young people and families experiencing disadvantage have access to safe, secure, and stable housing.
This means capital investment to grow social and affordable housing, so supply keeps pace with the number of families waiting. It means quicker access for families whose children are most at risk, cutting the time they spend in unsuitable accommodation. And it means joining up the housing and family support systems.
Poverty isn’t a personal failing. Families are in housing stress because the private market has priced them out and the safety net hasn’t kept up, not because of the choices they’ve made. That is the result of policy and policy can change it.
Every child deserves a safe place to call home. On 28 November Victorians should be asking their local candidates: what will you do to make sure every child has a home?