Providing homes for those in need

The social housing crisis is right here, right now, and it’s urgent. This is the motivation for Roger Hastrich from Sirovilla, an organisation providing affordable housing in the Geelong region, to ensure more is done in our community for low-income older people.

Greater Geelong has the second highest rate of homelessness in Victoria, with house prices increasing 10.5% in the past 12 months – outstripping wage growth by a factor of 10.

People who qualify for social housing are those on a low income who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. It’s estimated there are 6,000 households in the G21 region that meet these criteria.

“Housing is a major driver of functional poverty in Australia,” Roger says. “We are a long way behind the rest of the world in the development of housing that can help alleviate this issue.”

Sirovilla has recently helped all five council areas develop social housing plans.
“This is critical because the state government has allocated $5.3 billion across the state over the next four years to build 12,000 homes,” Roger says. “We will now bring together developers, philanthropy and other partners to build homes, hopefully hundreds and hundreds of them, over the next few years.”

Sirovilla recently received a $25,000 grant from the Geelong Community Foundation to employ Roger, the Project Manager to work with Councils and other stakeholders to increase the amount of social and affordable housing stock within the G21 Region. Using innovation and consistent housing standards will maximise funding allocated to the region from the VIC Government’s Big Housing Build initiative.

The social housing crisis is a priority need area for the Geelong Community Foundation. This grant was one of 54 grants distributed this year, totalling over $1 million to community organisations across the region. The Geelong Community Foundation’s grant program has been achieved by donations, gifts in wills and our investment performance.