State Govt rental scheme fails
A Barnett Government scheme aimed at helping people move out of WA's stressed public housing stocks and into private rentals has been a failure, shifting less than a dozen tenants since it started 18 months ago.
Officials from the Department of Housing today admitted that just 11 people had been moved out of social housing as part of a trial of the private rental brokerage scheme since the start of 2011.
Under the scheme, the Government pays up to 20 per cent of a welfare housing tenant's rent, reducing gradually over two years, if they move into a private rental.
However, Housing Department director Tania Loosley-Smith revealed to a Lower House Parliamentary Committee that record low vacancy rates in the private rental market had almost completely thwarted the scheme.
Ms Loosley-Smith said the program had been conceived when Perth's vacancy rate was about 3.5 per cent, but with current rates below 2 per cent barely any landlords were willing to entertain the idea.
She said the department had instead shifted the scheme's focus to regional centres such as Bunbury and Albany where lower demand for rentals increased its chances of success.
Today's admission came as the department said the number of people on the public housing waiting list had fallen slightly from 24136 to 22287 in the 12 months to June 30.
There had also been a decrease in the priority waiting list, which is reserved for some of WA's most needy, from 3577 to 3083.
Ms Loosley-Smith also said the department had lifted its ambitions for a separate scheme to provide affordable housing to people on low incomes.
The department had been aiming to build 5000 homes in WA under the national rental affordability scheme, which sees investors given tax breaks or cash grants to construct new properties that can be leased below market rates.
According to Ms Loosley-Smith, more than 620 homes had been built under the scheme in WA and its success here had prompted the department to lift its target to building 6000 homes by 2016.
