Housing and homelessness have been at a boiling point as Victoria has endured through a necessary hard lockdown to keep the community safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of a nation that has seen a 14% increase in homelessness (between 2015-2019), an additional 290,000 people without the safety of home, the next few weeks in Victoria are going to be terrifying for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

Due to funding cuts, concerned housing and homelessness workers are reporting a mass exiting of over 500 people experiencing homelessness from the hotels that they have been living in, some since March of this year.

Exit plans are centred on rooming house options, caravan parks, or Crisis Accommodation Facilities. Many people do not have support workers and are finding this transition extremely traumatising after months of safety and stability. This exiting has already begun and the Homelessness Sector is expecting a massive increase in rough sleeping.

While SWAG applaud the initial funding to assist people sleeping rough into hotel accommodation during hard lockdown, and of course the historically high spends in public, social, and affordable housing that have been announced in the most recent budget – frankly, it isn’t enough.

It is simply not acceptable for people to be exited from hotel accommodation while awaiting public housing vacancies that may not come to fruition for another four years. Furthermore, the ‘exit plans’ of rooming houses and caravan parks are often times disturbing in their lack of hygiene, extortionist level of high rents, zero tenancy security, risks to health and personal safety, increased risk of sexual assault (especially for women and LGBTQIA+ people), overcrowding, and often decrepit conditions. People experiencing homelessness will not receive support from housing and homelessness workers whilst in rooming houses, which they previously had access to in hotels.

We are asking you to sign this petition in support of SWAG’s demands from the Victorian Government:

1.     Ensure housing for all people experiencing homelessness who have been accommodated during Victoria’s hard lockdown in hotels.

2.     Continue funding hotel emergency accommodation for those who are waiting on housing allocations, especially in circumstances where rooming houses are not available or unsuitable when their ‘exit date’ comes. 

3.     Enact systemic change in the response to homelessness that removes rooming houses as a housing option, or holds them to a much higher standard, with greater supervision and oversight.