By ALESHA CAPONE
MORE than 5000 people across the West remain on the waiting list for public housing.
Last week, the State Government revealed the Sunshine public housing office – which includes families wanting homes in Brimbank, plus parts of Maribyrnong, Melton and Wyndham – had more than 3820 people on its waiting list in the January-March quarter.
In the previous period, the Sunshine office had more than 3700 people on its waiting list.
In between January-March, the Footscray public housing office – which covers part of Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay – had more than 1230 residents waiting for home.
In the October-December timeframe, the office had more than 1210 people on its waiting list.
The Minister for Housing, Wendy Lovell, said the entire north west metro region experienced a ‘slight fall’ in public housing waiting list figures during the March quarter.
The region recorded a fall of 160 applications to 13,775 in March from 13,935 in the December quarter.
Ms Lovell said work was continuing to develop a new Victorian social housing framework, to be delivered later this year.
On 30 April, the government began a consultation process on the future of social housing in Victoria.
“The development of a new framework is essential, given the Auditor-General’s acknowledgement that the housing portfolio was mismanaged by the former Labor Government,” Ms Lovell said.
However the Opposition’s Housing spokesman, Richard Wynne, accused Ms Lovell of “chronic mismanagement” of the state’s public housing.
Mr Wynne said Ms Lovell had provided no new funding to build more public housing since coming to office in 2010.
