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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 741 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 23 September 2020 by Mr A. Krsticevic

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

HOMELESSNESS

741. Mr A. KRSTICEVIC to the Premier:

I refer to the outstanding expose by Josh Zimmerman in The Sunday Times regarding the homelessness crisis in Western Australia, specifically focusing on the CBD tent city. Now that the people of Western Australia are aware that the government secretly sold off more than 1 000 public houses, will the Premier now apologise for the role his government played in the current homelessness crisis?

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

Obviously, the government has invested very heavily in additional housing, as members can see from the announcements that we have made over the past year. The government has invested $93 million per annum into homelessness and family and domestic violence services across the state. A large component of that is allocated directly to homelessness services statewide and in the Perth metropolitan area. On top of this, the government has allocated a record $72 million to support evidence-based approaches to homelessness. This includes a new Common Ground facility to be built in the Perth CBD. We are looking for another location for a second facility to provide permanent housing for homeless people. We look forward to getting them underway and constructed during the next couple of years.

The Housing First homelessness initiative was also rolled out, providing wraparound services for people in this situation. As part of COVID-19 recovery funding, a further $6.8 million was provided for homelessness services.

In terms of the provision of public housing, obviously we had to deal with some longstanding issues around Brownlie Towers and what I think are called the Stirling buildings in Highgate, which are old, decrepit and no longer fit for purpose. We had to close those facilities that had been on their last legs for a long period. That has impacted the number of properties available. Obviously, as part of our COVID response and also the stimulus measures that we took last year, we are constructing a great deal of additional public housing across Western Australia and also refurbishing a great deal of public housing that had not been refurbished or maintained. Like everything, as housing ages, it often becomes unusable. Fixing properties and making them available for people is an important part of what we are doing to get people back into some of those properties that were, in effect, left to rot over many years prior to the election of this government.