Lack of social housing support for Great Southern raises the eyebrow of shadow housing minister

A lack of State Government funding to support social housing developments in the Great Southern has been questioned by shadow housing minister Steve Martin. Earlier this month, nearly $40 million was allocated to 12 organisations from the State’s Social Housing Economic Recovery Package to support the development of 19 social housing projects across WA, none of which were in the Great Southern. The region was also overlooked in the first round of SHERP grants in which 17 projects were supported by just shy of $39m when they were announced in April. Mr Martin said funds from the SHERP grants had been “very slow to roll out, particularly in regional WA”. “It’s very disappointing that there has been nothing for the Great Southern through the first two rounds,” he said. “That is a fail from the Housing Minister (John Carey) because he’s not paying attention to regional WA, and in particular the Great Southern.” Among the funding announced in this month’s second round was more than $2.9m for eight dwellings in Witchcliffe and $4.1m for 12 dwellings in Shark Bay. Mr Martin said it seemed an anomaly that projects in much smaller towns were receiving funding over regional centres such as Albany, which he said he was “absolutely certain” needed more social housing. “I know what the private rental market has been like in Albany for nearly two years,” he said. “I know we’ve had people living in backyards, caravans, sleeping in their cars; so the bottom end of the housing market private and social is really, really tough in Albany and the wider Great Southern region. “We’ve seen nothing to address that from this Government.” He said it was “hard to get a handle on” how the SHERP grants were being allocated. “There is not a lot of transparency about the needs base for this funding, and we see that with no money heading to a major regional city like Albany,” he said. A Department of Communities spokesman said a number of applications were received from community housing providers across the Great Southern, but they “did not meet the criteria for funding”. He said while no applications were successful for new builds in the region, $860,721 had been allocated for the refurbishment of three separate dwellings earlier this year. “The assessment criteria for both SHERP new builds and refurbishment grant applications included priority demand and location, value for money, financial viability of the organisation, existing services and amenities in the community, technical compliance, and project management capacity of the organisation to successfully deliver the project,” he said. “The Great Southern and Albany have fewer applicants on the housing waitlist than some other parts of Western Australia. “This and other criteria informed their final score during assessment.”