[Greens-Media] 14,000 reasons to take action on Homeless Persons Week – Greens

[Torre, Giovanni (Sen S. Ludlam)]

14,000 reasons to take action on Homeless Persons Week – Greens
Media release: Greens housing spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam 7 August 2012

Australian Greens housing spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam has urged the state and Federal governments to work together on urgent action to address homelessness, as figures show the public housing wait list has doubled in Western Australia and 105,000 Australians are homeless.

“In WA the Director General of housing said public housing wait lists have doubled since 2007, and we have 14,000 homeless people in our state. The chronic affordable housing shortage is one of the consequences of the mining boom, and it’s shameful that while this industry makes vast profits, many West Australians struggle to pay their rent or their mortgage.

“The state and Federal governments have not prioritised homelessness: The sector has no certainty about funding from next year as the National Partnership on Homelessness expires in June – and is part of the National Affordable  Housing Agreement yet to be renegotiated. With the way the state governments have been behaving – I’m anxious about the future of this vital Agreement.

“Homelessness Australia said the homelessness sector needs at least $1.2 billion just to continue providing existing programs and services beyond 2013.

“The Greens call for urgent and long-term funding to provide housing and services for all of Australia’s homeless persons – now well over 100,000 people.

“If the Federal Government is serious about halving homelessness by 2020 - as promised in Kevin Rudd’s White Paper - it needs to commit the funding now and end the uncertainty.

“The national partnership on homelessness allocated one billion dollars over the last five years to homelessness. We give away at least double this amount every year to property investors who already own at least one house through negative gearing.

“This crisis is an unnatural disaster. We can solve this situation with political will and vision: For less than one billion dollars we could build a home for every single person in Australia who is literally living on the streets.”



Media contact: Giovanni Torre – 0417 174 302