Greens welcome billions for public housing but warn against another public housing estate sell-off
The Victorian Greens have welcomed reports of billions for public housing in the upcoming State Budget but have warned the Andrews Labor Government against another sell-off of public housing estates.
The government’s current Public Housing Renewal Program involves building private units on public housing estates while only marginally increasing the number of public housing units.
Despite being announced in 2017, the program is not due to complete its first project until 2023, some six years later.
Some estates like Bangs Street in Prahran are sitting vacant with no builder appointed or timeline for completion. A similar project on Markham Avenue in Ashburton, which saw public housing demolished in 2016, has been a vacant block of land for almost five years.
The Greens recently successfully moved a motion in support of a Green New Deal for Victoria which called for the government to invest in a build big build of public housing.
Quotes attributable to Victorian Greens acting spokesperson for housing, Sam Hibbins MP:
"If there is a big build of public housing in the Budget, it’s a huge win for the Greens and homelessness advocates who have been highlighting the Government’s inaction on this crisis for a decade.
"The Greens have been campaigning for a big build of public housing in the upcoming State Budget. Victoria needs 100,000 more public housing homes to cut the waiting list, help end homelessness and create much needed jobs.
"But we don’t want to see a repeat of Labor’s ‘Public Housing Renewal’ program which was simply a massive privatisation of public housing land for only a small increase in public housing, and years later it still hasn’t delivered a single unit."
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