Life-changing build

Tuesday August 01, 2023

By Charlotte Varcoe

ABOUT 40 public homes will be built on a 1.8 hectare block near Hastings Cunningham Reserve in an effort to combat the current housing crisis.

The State Government initiative was announced by Premier Peter Malinauskas last week during his fly in, fly out visit to the Blue Lake City.

According to the Premier, preliminary works have been completed, allowing the homes to be built quickly.

"We have got good engagement with industry and trades to get these houses online," Mr Malinauskas said.

"As a government, we are investing a lot more in public housing, including here in Mount Gambier, because the need is there."

He said for those who would live in the homes, it would be life-changing.

"We also acknowledge that the need is substantial, and no matter how much we seem to invest in this area, there is an unmet need," Mr Malinauskas said.

"There are a lot of people on the waiting list to get access to public and social housing and the category one waiting list is massive.

"Nobody wants to see people sleeping rough, but it is so much more than that - the power of putting a roof over someone's head is that once they are having to stop worrying about shelter they can start focusing their effort and energy on how they might participate in the labour market or deploy their energy somewhere else."

Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell said the public houses were long overdue and he was "happy to see the government investing in - the region".

In terms of investment, we have seen over a number of years a decline in stock and the numbers of houses, so it is really pleasing to see we now have investment and an increase in that supply," he said.

"The need is increasing and we need to make sure that we are keeping up with that need."

Mount Gambier City Council chief executive Sarah Philpott recently rejected rumours - the 40 homes would be built on council land, stating the allotment was not owned by the council, nor was it on Hastings Cunningham Reserve, nor the Reidy Park Tennis courts despite rumours on social media.

Mr Malinauskas also discussed the State Government revamping a number of unliveable public houses, and said with different properties having different needs, there were a number of challenges.

"There is nothing more infuriating than seeing a vacant home in public houses because it has become so dilapidated that nobody is there," Mr Malinauskas said.

"We have dramatically invested in rehabilitating that and that work has already been started last year and has progressively been rolled out."

He said there were also difficulties in terms of accessibility to trades which had been a challenge.

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