More housing needed in Narungga

With the recent media announcement from the Labor Government confirming the location of the 400 new public housing builds, Member for Narungga Fraser Ellis MP has expressed dismay at our community having missed out again.

“With our public housing stock not having increased significantly, and despite meetings that included the Ministers advisors, we have missed out completely on new housing stock in Narungga,” Mr Ellis said.
“We desperately need investment in public housing in our electorate to cater for an obvious and growing need that hasn’t been addressed in over a decade.
“There are on average 35 vacancies per year in our community and we currently have over 70 people waiting on category one!
“Not to even mention the number of people on lower category waiting lists.
“It is completely and utterly unacceptable that we have missed out.”
Members of the public with information about vacant houses or in desperate need of housing are urged to contact the Electorate Office.
“We will continue to do our best to support everyone in our community who is facing housing difficulty and hope to use that evidence of demand to continue to work on convincing the government of the need for investment,” Mr Ellis said.
“Further, for those who are aware of empty residences we are happy to notify the authorities to ensure that they are repaired and made available for accommodation at the earliest convenience.
“We are also putting forward creative ideas from the community about ways in which we can ease this crisis.”
Mr Ellis expressed his deepest frustrations at the way in which these decisions appear to be made.
“Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of those in our community, we have again been looked past for investment,” he said.
“We missed out on securing a single dollar in health investment despite a focus during the campaign and now we miss out on a single dollar on housing – arguably the two most important issues.
“I will continue to work collaboratively with the government, but it is frustrating when they look past our community in favour of others consistently.”
Minister for Human Services Nat Cook last week announced a $177 million housing plan to build 400 new public houses across the State but none are to be constructed in the Narungga electorate.
“The new construction is to occur in Greater Adelaide and in Mount Gambier, Murray Bridge and Mount Barker, and whilst this is a good start to addressing the desperate need for more public and social housing, I have implored the Minister to also invest in the Narungga electorate and to provide me with information about any plans to do so.
“As I stated in the chamber back in May, since 2010/11 public housing stocks in our region have only increased by some 30 houses despite significant population growth in the last decade.
“We now naturally have demand for local public housing far outweighing supply and have to play catch up.
“The most desperate of families assigned even to the urgent Category One allocation are now facing a minimum two year wait for any type of public housing, and this situation cannot continue.”