2024-08-05
As homelessness week begins and the housing sector descends into a worsening crisis the Greens are calling on the Victorian Labor Government to support our Bill that would require housing to be treated as a human right to help end homelessness.
The Victorian Greens’ Ending Homelessness Bill would enshrine housing as a human right in Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.
The Bill is currently before Parliament and the Vicotrian Greens are urging the Labor Government to seize the opportunity to support it and make it law immediately.
Enshrining a ‘right to housing’ in Victoria’s Human Rights Charter would mean that any future legislation before the Parliament would have to be considered against every Victorian’s right to adequate housing.
The Greens’ Bill would also require the government to develop a plan to end homelessness within the decade, set targets for building more public housing and publicly report each year to monitor its progress.
Victoria has the highest number of people seeking support for homelessness across the country, as over 30,000 Victorians are experiencing homelessness on any given night in the state. Yet, the sector is in crisis having to turn people away.
Greens spokesperson for public and affordable housing Samantha Ratnam MLC said that homelessness is a policy failure and providing all Victorians with safe and secure housing is possible. But the only way we’re going to be able to end homelessness is if we start treating housing as a human right instead of an investment vehicle as successive governments have continued to do.
She added that Victorian Labor is supercharging the housing crisis with its plans to demolish public housing and sell off public land to private developers.
Quotes attributable to Samantha Ratnam MLC, Spokesperson for Public and Affordable Housing:
“This homelessness week, the Greens are calling on Victorian Labor to support our bill to make housing a human right and to build 100,000 public homes, because this is how we can end homelessness.
“Instead of treating housing as a right, Labor is commodifying it.
“Instead of building more public housing, Labor is knocking it down and privatising it.
“And instead of supporting people in desperate housing need, Labor is turning its back on them.
“Homelessness is a moral and policy failure of successive Labor and Liberal governments. The first step to ending homelessness is to treat it as a human right, as it should be.
“Labor must find the moral courage to do the right thing and put people before property developer profits.”