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Homelessness is often a cause of poor physical and mental health and substance abuse, rather than a consequence of them, an event co-sponsored by a Victorian Anglican agency was told on 6 October.
The CEO of Anglican aged care provider Benetas, Ms Sandra Hills, told the Great Housing Debate at Federation Square that more than 18,000 people over the age of 55 were homeless on Census night in 2006.
“What’s scary is that this had increased by an extra 4000 people from 2001,” she said in remarks before the debate began. “I have no doubt that results from the 2011 Census will show that this continues to increase.’
Ms Hills also said that in March 2008, it was estimated that 112,000 households headed by a person aged over 70 were in housing stress compared with 56,000 households in 2004.
“That’s a staggering increase of 110% in four years.
“Homelessness or lack of secure housing is significant causes of poor physical and mental health,” she said.
The Great Debate, on the topic “That Affordable Housing is a Right”, was sponsored by Benetas, the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and the Victorian Seniors festival.
Urban planner and broadcaster, Mr Bill Kusznirczuk, said current trends suggested that home ownership would be a middle-class privilege in the future.
“The unfortunate reality is that housing affordability is at a crisis point in this country,” he said, speaking for the affirmative. “We are losing the Great Australian Dream, our house is not our castle.”
He said between 1984 and 2006, housing prices rose by 493%, while earnings rose by only 180%. Since 2006, housing prices had risen by another 150%.
But Ms Pat Sparrow, Director of Aged Care Reform Engagement at the Council On The Ageing – for the negative – said affordable housing already was recognised as a right, with Australia a signatory to international covenants recognising this.
The right to adequate housing was more than the idea of shelter. It included security of tenure and had to be habitable.
Comedian and activist Rod Quantock, for the affirmative team, asked people, like himself, who were aged 60 and over to turn to someone younger and say sorry for the housing mess.
He said his parents were born after World War I, lived through World War II and yearned for a better world, part of which was home ownership.
He joked that his family lived in a gutter in Sydney Road Coburg until they occupied a passing tram and that his father, mistaken for a conductor, had collected enough in fares to save for a home.
But Mr Quantock said the world’s population had tripled in his lifetime and the oil was running out.
“Like the dinosaurs, we are rampaging through the natural world,” he said.
Ms Farah Farouque, the Law and Justice Editor of The Age newspaper, announced the adjudicators’ decision that the negative team had won the debate.
The CEO of Hanover Welfare Services, Mr Tony Keenan, told TMA after the debate that there were 40,000 people on the waiting list for public housing in Victoria. To provide the number of houses required to meet that demand would cost about $16 billion out of a total state budget of $48 billion – this could not be done when there were other important claims on the state budget, such as education and health.
“I think affordable housing is like public transport was 10 years ago… In the next five to 10 years, homelessness will become an election-winning/losing issue,” he said.