CEO Carolyn Doherty on Radio 2ST with Graeme Day
Our CEO Carolyn Doherty joined Graeme Day on Radio 2ST Highlands to talk about the current housing situation in the Highlands. She answers questions about the pressure on people in the area who can’t afford the rent in the area. Listen to Carolyn below.
“It’s a significant issue in the Southern Highlands community. We have a lot of people that are actually really struggling and being forced out of the community or being forced into homelessness as a consequence.”
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Affordable Housing
“What the community knows affordable housing is probably quite different to what gets spoken about during the election. So quite often when you hear politicians talk about affordable housing and what the majority of the community think about affordable housing is housing that’s affordable to purchase and the reality is that in Australia now we have I guess another issue in that the rental prices have actually escalated.
So much over the last couple of decades, particularly in the last five years, that we’re actually seeing people who are in, you know, good professional positions teachers, nurses, key workers that every community relies upon in a situation where they’re not even able to not just buy a house but that they can’t even afford to rent a house. And so what that means is those communities and the Highlands, as a great example, start losing those key workers and you start seeing experiences where you know, you don’t have enough nurses in hospitals, you don’t have enough, you know, some poor, you don’t have enough people to make a coffee.
You don’t have enough people to do those really essential things that happen in every community but keep it vibrant and keep it moving. So and affordable housing, as I know it and our bread and butter is where we’re actually supplying housing, that is affordable to those key workers in a rental in a rental sense.
We’re seeing people for the first time ever who are trying to get housed through the social housing register purely for economic reasons. In the past, it’s been people that have had really complex barriers to housing now a days we’re actually seeing more and more people applying for public housing purely because they can’t afford to rent anywhere else.
But, you know, it’s, it’s a significant issue in the Southern Highlands community. We have a lot of people that are actually really struggling and being forced out of the community or being forced into homelessness as a consequence.”
~ Carolyn Doherty