Page 237 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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the territory with over 11,000 properties. In addition, the community housing sector manages over 600 tenancies. These properties represent in excess of nine per cent of the total housing stock within the ACT. This is nearly 100 per cent more than the average of public housing across Australia.
This government is committed to maintaining public housing numbers against the previous Liberal government’s intent to reduce public housing numbers. This government is committed to retaining the most affordable housing at high levels, to ensure that for those most in need we are able to limit the amount that they need to spend on housing and maximise expenditure for their other daily necessities. This government retains a strong commitment to public and community housing as a means of delivering affordable housing.
Against the backdrop of the housing affordability challenge, the government has positioned public housing so that it is principally targeted to those most in need and has revised allocation categories so that timely allocations are made to applicants with priority needs.
In a recently released report on government services 2007, Housing ACT ranked highly in a number of key areas. Importantly, this included the proportion of new housing allocations going to clients in greatest need. In the ACT 86.5 per cent of new allocations went to applicants in urgent need of housing, compared to 38.1 per cent nationally. The report also highlighted increasing tenant satisfaction with Housing ACT. Tenant satisfaction increased from 62 per cent in 2001 to 67 per cent in 2005, and further increased to 69 per cent in 2006 in a local client satisfaction survey.
In early June 2006 I approved a range of amendments to the ACT’s public rental housing assistance program to further sharpen its focus on people most in need of public housing assistance. The changes included overhauling the priority allocation system and substantially tightening the income and residency criteria. The income barrier for a single person is now set at $508 a week, and for a two-person household at $635 a week. This is increased by $85 for each additional resident of the household, including children.
Applicants for housing are now also required to have lived in the ACT for at least six months. Previously, applicants could meet the residence requirement as soon as they moved to the ACT or if they worked or studied in the territory. The key objective of the new priority allocation system has been to ensure timely allocations for those with priority needs.
The new priority allocation system limits priority housing applicants to 150 at any one time, with the expectation that these will be housed within three months. Need and risk factors for priority housing include homelessness, mental health, serious medical issues, women escaping domestic violence, and/or children at significant risk. A multidisciplinary committee with appropriate expertise determines entry to the priority housing category.
I am delighted to say that the new system is showing significant improvements. To date the average waiting time for priority applicants is 54 days compared with an average waiting time under the previous system of nine months for priority applicants.
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