Victoria's Big Housing Build promised thousands of new homes, will it hit its target?

An ambitious plan set out by the former Andrews government vowed to tackle Victoria’s housing crisis by boosting affordable housing stock when it was announced in 2020.

The Big Housing Build was slated to deliver 12,000 new social and affordable homes throughout metro and regional Victoria.

But three years and four months on, the succeeding Allan government has said just over 9000 of those homes were complete or in construction.

What is the Big Housing Build?

Then-premier Daniel Andrews pledged to “boost our state’s social housing supply by 10 per cent” as part of a four-year Big Housing Build plan.

The $5.3 billion scheme set out to build 9300 new homes and replace 1100 of existing public housing.

How many homes have been built?

Just 3611 homes are finished.

In the middle of 2020, Victoria had a little over 85,111 public and social homes.

Three years later, the state had 88,189, an increase of just 3.6 per cent but that figure shrinks to just 1.6 per cent if you compare today’s number to 2018.

Then-Premier Dan Andrews pledged to boost social housing supply by 10 per cent over four years.

Will the government meet its target by May’s Budget?

The government has been building new homes, but it’s also been selling or bulldozing older and larger social homes.

There are now 3500 public houses with fewer bedrooms in Victoria compared to 2017.

At the same time, the waitlist for public and social housing has almost doubled from 35,392 applications to 60,708.

On top of that, on average it’s taking families on the priority list more than a year-and-a-half to get a home.

People fleeing domestic violence are waiting even longer, remaining on the list for about around 24 months.

‘We’re working as hard as we can’

In November, Andrews’ successor, Jacinta Allan, noted there had been “some challenges”, attributing consecutive interest rate rises and disruptions to supply chains.

“We’re working as hard as we can with the local industry,” she said.

“What’s important is there’s already thousands and thousands of homes that have been built and thousands and thousands more underway.”

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, celebrity and sport via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.