As the federal and West Australian governments aim to provide policies to tackle the nation’s housing crisis in budget announcements this week, some of Broome’s most vulnerable residents continue to wait years for social housing.
For 54-year-old Josephine Thompson, the roof over her head in Broome is a car and each night is a recurring nightmare.
“I’m frightened someone might cut my throat or something … that’s what I’m scared of every time I get up from sleep,” she said.
Suffering from chronic illness, Ms Thompson said she had been forced to store her medication at a friend’s house to prevent it going off.
She said the government needed to prioritise more social housing to support vulnerable people like her on the streets.
“[They] are making a lot of money in this town from tourists and they’re not building more housing,” she said.
The Eliminating Homelessness Report, released in March by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), estimated more than 120,000 Australians were homeless during 2021 census night.
Women accounted for 81 per cent of the 6,067 increase of people experiencing homelessness in 2021.
The WA government last week announced a $511 million commitment to social housing and homelessness as part of the upcoming 2023-24 state budget on May 11.
The latest funding includes a pilot program with community housing organisations, delivering 100 supportive landlord homes for regional WA, while their allocation among the regions remains unknown.
Social services call for more housing
Centacare general manager Michelle Biondi said more infrastructure was needed in Broome to support the increasing number of social housing applicants.
“The average waitlist is two years across Western Australia but here in the Kimberley, it goes up to 16 years [for certain properties or due to people needing to reapply],” she said.
“So that in itself tells a story about the limited availability of houses in social housing.”
A Department of Communities spokesperson said currently no individual in Broome’s preference zone had been on the waitlist for 16 years.
The department said generally individual circumstances influenced the longer-than-average wait times.
The circumstances include requiring specific housing features, declining offered properties, spending time incarcerated or advising of changes in preference zone, family composition and housing need.
As of March 31, there were 618 applications for public housing in the Broome preference zone, with an average waiting time of 235 weeks, or four-and-half years, to be housed.
Centacare refers some clients to the Broome and Derby Aboriginal Short Stay Accommodation, which only provides a 28-day respite.
Meanwhile, Centacare staff have noticed a new homeless demographic of older women is being rejected by backpacker dwellings due to their age.
Ms Biondi said the cost of living was exacerbated for young families who were homeless or sharing with another household.
“The flow-on effect of the housing crisis is family breakdown and this whole socio-economic push-pull factor that’s happening is just not sustainable to a healthy wellbeing.”
Centacare Homeless and Housing Program team leader Priscilla MacKenzie said Kimberley residents’ strong connection to family meant some were hesitant to leave the region for better housing.
“A lot of them tend to stay, just wait and be homeless and continue living in overcrowded homes where there’s a lot of domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse,” Ms MacKenzie said.
She said the average attendance at Centacare’s breakfast program ranged from 40 to 120 people in a single morning, with the recent flood disaster in Fitzroy Crossing bringing more people to Broome and the program.
“People are bringing in their kids that have just turned 18 or 19, which is a concern for us, because that’s that cycle of them being dependent on that system, when we want to try and work with them to offer better life skills,” she said.
Breaking the cycle with positive influence
St John of God’s Horizon House program supports Kimberley youth by identifying people who are homeless or at risk and housing them as an early intervention.
Program lead Naomi Boyd said it aimed to connect young people back to their community, and had experienced a recent increase in demand for the service as rough sleepers increased in the region.
“When you look at the Kimberley and the difficulties they face in this area, it’s just devastating,” she said.
“It’s such a wonderful community and yet, we don’t have the infrastructure and the supports in place to really help our young people to thrive.”
Ms Boyd said the stigma around homelessness blamed people for their situation, something Horizon House hoped to eliminate when helping youth transition into more positive lives.
“We’re building up these young men to be their best selves in the community … they [act as] role models to their friends and role models to their family, so it ends up having that knock-on effect,” she said.
The Department of Communities said as of March 31 this year, there were 618 applicants for public housing in the Broome preference zone.
Since July 1, 2021, 40 new social housing dwellings have been added to the Kimberley and as of March 31, 42 more social houses are under contract or construction in the region.
The statement said the state government was doing all it could to accelerate the delivery of social housing for WA and cited COVID as a challenge in the construction of new dwellings.