Housing support
Key points
- Everyone deserves access to affordable housing. It is an important part of building liveable communities
- Homelessness is a growing issue in Cardinia Shire.
- In Cardinia Shire we encourage diverse, high quality and sustainable housing that is affordable for all, near employment, education, goods and services and open space, which is connected by active travel infrastructure and meets the needs of a growing and diverse community
- As our shire continues to grow rapidly over the next 20 years the local population and number of houses is expected to more than double by 2031
- Local research shows that homelessness is a significant but sometimes hidden issue in our community
- Council has developed a 7-year Social and Affordable Housing Strategy, which outlines how we will work with local agencies towards increasing access to diverse, high quality, sustainable and affordable housing that is responsive to the needs of a growing and diverse community
- You can sign up to register your interest in social and affordable housing and homelessness
Read our Social and Affordable Housing Strategy
Read our social housing fact sheet
Read the strategy and action plan
Download the Liveability Plan housing domain factsheet 2021
Our objective
Increase access to appropriate and affordable housing.
We will do this by:
- supporting and facilitating affordable and flexible housing which caters for different households and meets the needs of all people
- encouraging diversity in housing to meet the needs of existing and future residents across all life stages, including those with specific housing requirements
- supporting high quality residential developments that respond to best practice in sustainability, environmental, safety and healthy by design guidelines
- identifying opportunities to work with housing organisations to encourage development of sustainable community housing across the municipality
Affordable housing shortages in Cardinia Shire
While Cardinia Shire may seem more affordable compared to other parts of Melbourne, a growing number of lower income and vulnerable residents don’t have access to housing that is affordable for their income level.
The private market is not delivering housing options for everyone. There is a shortage of smaller dwellings available for single and couple households, and a lack of appropriate housing for people with special needs.
Housing stress
Over 3,800 households across our community are living in ‘housing stress’: this means they are spending more than a third of their income on housing costs and therefore can’t always meet other costs of living such as transport, bills, food, education, and medical expenses.
To support these families, 7% of all housing in Cardinia Shire would need to be social and affordable housing, but currently it only makes up 0.9%, well below Melbourne averages. This has resulted in a 53% increase in the number of people sleeping rough across our local community over the past 5 years.
How much do you know about social and affordable housing?
Take our interactive quiz
Our objective
Increase access to appropriate and affordable housing
Our current initiatives
Working in partnership to build solutions
Regional Local Government Homelessness and Social Housing Charter
In August 2020, Council endorsed the Regional Local Government Homelessness and Social Housing Charter.
The charter outlines a unified, local government response from 13 eastern and south-eastern councils across Melbourne to address the urgent need for increased social housing and a more effective, integrated and supported homelessness service system.
The social and affordable housing partnership group
The social and affordable housing partnership group includes community members, Council staff and housing agencies working together to implement actions outlined in the Social and Affordable Housing Strategy.
Questions?
Contact our Social Policy Officer on 1300 787 624
Housing rights are human rights
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