Roger Jaensch,Minister for Housing
This has been a tough year for many Tasmanians and the Government has taken action to ensure those that need extra help can access it.
For those Tasmanians sleeping rough, our $4.3 million housing and homelessness support package continues to provide additional homelessness support through expanded 24-hour Safe Spaces in Hobart, Launceston and Burnie, as well as uncapped emergency accommodation brokerage and wrap around support services.
At the same time, we are working to deliver hundreds of new social homes under our Affordable Housing Strategy and the government recently advertised an EOI to deliver up to 1000 new social housing dwellings over the next three years under our Community Housing Growth Program.
The program forms part of our construction blitz, underpinning $3.1 billion of construction and investment, and will go a long way to providing secure, long-term accommodation for Tasmanians waiting for housing. That’s more than double what Labor’s Housing Works policy would provide, for the same money.
The latest Quarterly Housing Report also shows that over the 2019/20 financial year, the Government delivered 316 new social houses and assisted almost 400 other households with their housing needs across the same period.
The waiver of the Commonwealth Housing Debt is also delivering for Tasmanians, with 30 households already assisted through private rentals and additional social housing, the construction of 127 new social houses now underway and contracts for another 173 new homes currently being finalised.
Labor were in power for 16 years and didn’t lift a finger to waive the debt, so it is beyond hypocritical to now criticise, given we are the ones that delivered it.
And, we are working to deliver a number of other housing projects to assist Tasmanians in need, including the refurbishment of the Waratah Hotel into a 24 bed Supported Accommodation Facility, the Huntingfield subdivision, and two new youth foyers for young people at risk of homelessness.
We understand it’s been a difficult year for many Tasmanians and we will continue to do all we can to help Tasmanians in need into safe and secure housing right across the State.
