Revealed: Families on $100k a year living in public housing

More than a dozen Victorian families with six-figure incomes are believed to be living in public housing.

According to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, there are 12 registered tenants with more than $100,000 annual income. They are all receiving rental rebates.

The income of a Victorian family, with one child, must be under $961 a week in order to qualify for assistance.

Of the 12 cases listed, ten of these will have their rebates cancelled “from next month,” the department has stated. They also said that these ten cases had only seen increases in their income “recently.”

Minister for Housing, Disability and Ageing Martin Foley downplayed the numbers, telling the Daily Mail he was “pretty sure” the department’s public housing tenants were not “on over $100,000 a year.”

“Our public sector tenants represent vulnerable arrangements,” he said.

The department pointed out that a tenant’s actual working salary did not classify as their entire ‘income’.

“For example, a single mother with five children on wages of less than $800 per week may have a total annual income of over $100,000 once additional payments such as child support, the single parent pension and family tax benefit are included,” it said.

News break – July 14