Housing wait times top five years in parts of NSW

Women and children are being forced to choose between sleeping in a car or returning to a dangerous home because of a lack of social housing in NSW, a peak body says.

New analysis of Australia’s largest social housing system illustrates a stubbornly high applicant list and growing wait times since June last year.

The average “priority” applicant now waits 14 weeks for a home.

“It means domestic violence survivors are forced to choose between sleeping in a vehicle or returning to a dangerous home,” Homelessness NSW chief executive Dom Rowe said on Wednesday.

“Others are stuck in unsafe and overcrowded accommodation or sleeping on a different couch every night.”

Some 57,400 singles and families were on the waitlist across NSW on March 31, including about 8600 priority applicants.

Since June, general waitlist times in southern NSW have more than doubled to 28 months, while large increases were also felt in western Sydney and northern Sydney.

New applicants in northern NSW are being told they’ll likely be waiting until late 2029 for a suitable, affordable home.

Significant drops were recorded on the Central Coast, the Murrumbidgee and southeastern Sydney.

Homelessness NSW demanded 5000 new social homes be built annually and $128 million for underfunded and overstretched frontline services.

“Some services are so overwhelmed by soaring community demand that they have had to switch off phone lines or shut their doors temporarily,” Ms Rowe said.

The analysis comes a day after Anglicare Australia declared rental affordability the worst it has ever been and accused governments of all stripes of abandoning public housing.

Social housing stock has barely shifted in the past 25 years despite the population growing by 44 per cent.

“Solutions aimed at propping up private investors, like Commonwealth Rent Assistance and negative gearing, have become the preferred housing policy of governments,” Anglicare said in its rental affordability snapshot.

The NSW opposition said decisions such as one to scrap a proposed redevelopment of a social housing estate in Coffs Harbour were placing further pressure on the market.

The 127-home Argyll Estate redevelopment added too few new homes and needed a better approach, the government said last year.

“For a government talking about more for social housing, they haven’t actually put the funding in place to build more social homes and to leverage the market to deliver more homes in general,” opposition housing spokesman Scott Farlow told AAP.

Housing Minister Rose Jackson was contacted for comment.

The minister conceded in March the state was in the midst of a housing and homelessness crisis and more funding, including from the federal government, was needed for the sector.

“The best way to reduce homelessness is by building houses. But building houses takes time,” she said.

Quicker solutions underway include contract extensions for specialist homelessness services and reviewing rules for Airbnbs and other short-term rentals.

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