New social homes welcome, but are a fraction of what's needed to end homelessness emergency

Council to Homeless Persons

New social homes welcome, but are a fraction of what’s needed to end homelessness emergency

Council to Homeless Persons has welcomed the announcement of more than one-thousand new social homes to be built in Victoria, and called for this to be the start of an ongoing social housing building blitz.

The State Government’s commitment to build 1,043 homes across Victoria through its Social Housing Growth Fund follows a joint commitment by the Victorian and Federal Governments earlier this month to fund construction of more than 1,200 social homes through the second round of the Housing Australia Future Fund.

“Two-thousand new social homes greenlit this month is a fantastic step, but this must be just the start if the Government is taking Victoria’s homelessness crisis seriously,” Council to Homeless Persons CEO Deborah Di Natale said.

“We have 66,000 applicants languishing on Victoria’s social housing waitlist right now. Women and children are sleeping in their cars at night, living in fear. And that is completely unacceptable.

“The State Government’s own infrastructure adviser, Infrastructure Victoria, says the government can and should be building 4,000 new social homes every year for the next 15 years, so let’s get started,” Deborah Di Natale said.

One third of Australians seeking homelessness assistance are in Victoria, yet the state has the lowest proportion of social housing.

Council to Homeless Persons has joined other community peak organisations in calling for the Victorian Government to build 7,990 new social homes each year for the next decade in order to reach the national average of social housing.

“The state’s homelessness crisis is only going to get worse unless the government commits to a social housing building blitz of this scale.

“No one should be facing homelessness in this state. We can end it but, to do so, we need a strong commitment to provide the social housing Victoria needs,” Deborah Di Natale said.

Media contact: Kathleen Ferguson - 0421 522 080

Fast Facts:

102,000 people sought assistance from homelessness services in Victoria in 2023/24 (up 4 per cent from the previous year)
60,000 of them (58 per cent ) were women
13,000 were working Victorians (up 23 per cent in five years)
Family violence was the the number 1 reason given for seeking assistance from homelessness services in Victoria in 2023/24
One third of people seeking homelessness assistance in Australia are in Victoria, but we have the lowest proportion of social housing in the country (2.9 per cent). The national average is 3.9 per cent.
Infrastructure Victoria’s number 1 recommendation in its report “Victoria’s draft 30-year infrastructure strategy” (released March 2025) is that the Victorian Government fund a program to build 4,000 new social homes per year for the next 15 years.