Every Victorian should have a safe place to call home. And yet each night there are around 25,000 people across the state who are sleeping on the street, in their cars, in dodgy rooming houses or couch surfing.
Our homelessness crisis has grown due to a lack of action from the Victorian Government, which has neglected public housing for decades. And to make matters worse, in recent years the Government has also been selling off public housing and public land to property developers, instead of building more public homes.
As a result, there are more than 100,000 Victorians on the public housing waiting list.
What can we do about it?
The most effective way to end homelessness is to build more public housing.
Just like public health and education, governments have a responsibility to provide public homes for those who need it. Because everyone, no matter their bank balance, should have a safe and secure place to call home.
The Greens support a Housing First approach to ending homelessness, which means ensuring people have secure housing first, from which they can then look to address any other issues or hardships they may face.
The Greens' plan to end homelessness includes:
- Building 100,000 new public homes in ten years, enough to house everyone on the public housing waiting list and more
- Long-term provision of affordable housing through the Housing First Model
- Long-term guaranteed funding for homelessness services
- Stopping the sell-off of public land, to ensure this land is used for the benefit of the community (not property developers)
We know that when the Government feels the pressure from the community as well as the Greens in Parliament, we can achieve big steps forward.
Join the campaign and be part of ending homelessness in Victoria.