GET YOUR
FREE TV GUIDE INSIDE!
Western Port An independent voice for the community
Your weekly community newspaper covering the entire Western Port region For all advertising and editorial, call 03
FREE9
Wednesday 18 May 2022
5974 9000 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au
Candidates at ‘town hall’
ABOUT 400 interested voters attended last Wednesday’s “town hall” meeting at the New Peninsula Church, Mount Martha. Hundreds more listened and watched live broadcasts of the Peninsula Voice-hosted forum on RPP FM. This week’s final pre-Saturday 21 May federal election coverage is on Pages 8 to 11. Picture: Yanni
Car-sleepers rise amid housing crisis Liz Bell liz@mpnews.com.au FAMILIES are sleeping in their cars in petrol stations and other public car parks around the Mornington Peninsula, as housing affordability and the rental crisis worsens. At the all-night BP stations on Peninsula Link in Baxter, every night at least two cars – sometimes more – pull up in the anonymity of nightfall and park for the night. The wife of a truckie who sees the despair and dilemma of the car sleep-
ers and contacted The News to say it was heartbreaking and more should be done. At Rosebud and Rye foreshores rough sleepers and people in cars have access to some all-night toilets and wash rooms. The drivers find a parking space far enough away to give the illusion of privacy, but close enough to access amenities and provide some semblance of cleanliness and order. Some curl up on their own with a sleeping bag or clothes for blankets, while others fuss around their children
to settle them in for the night. It is a routine many are now used to, since rents have soared, and housing investors target the peninsula. As revealed this year by market researched CoreLogic, seven of the state’s top eight postcodes for rental increases between January 2020 and 2022 are on peninsula. In June 2021, the peninsula’s median house price was $1.12 million, and the median rent was $520 a week - higher than greater Melbourne. In some areas prices continue to soar. Rye, Sorrento, Dromana and Mc-
Crae have all recorded an annual growth of least 20 per cent, Council to Homeless Persons CEO Jenny Smith says homelessness across the peninsula is getting worse. “We know at least half of peninsula renters are in financial stress, amid surging rents and an undersupply of social housing,” she said. There are nearly 400 households in the region supported by the From Homeless to a Home program, but the recent state budget saw its allocation slashed 78 per cent. The state government has an-
nounced an affordable housing rental scheme to address the gap in housing affordability and supply for low to moderate income households experiencing rental stress. As part of the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build, Homes Victoria’s rental scheme will provide an extra 2400 affordable rental homes in regional Victoria. Under the program, fixedterm rental agreements will be offered for a minimum three years. But the announcements are cold comfort for rough sleepers, or those on waiting lists. Continued Page 12