The Victorian Government’s Big Housing Build will construct a minimum of $80 million of new social housing in Ballarat, $20 million in Moorabool and $15 million in Golden Plains over the next four years.

This will help replace old public housing and build new social and low-cost housing. Much of this investment will be made in partnership with local providers, local government and investors.

The Member for Buninyong Michaela Settle has opened a community and stakeholder survey to get a better picture of housing affordability in the Ballarat region, how it is affecting the community and find ways to address the issue.

A policy intern from Monash University based out of Michaela’s office is writing a policy research paper on housing affordability in the Ballarat region and the host of the project is the Parliamentary Library, Victoria.

The survey is open to everyone in the community and all the data will be used in the research project, to participate visit the Google doc link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf_i39wYKIdB1bWOR8LDBrDaxM2FoEqXFDvukWYRGaCaO46iw/viewform

All data is protected and collected for research purposes, the survey closes in two weeks on 21 April 2021.

The Victorian Budget 2020/21 delivered a historic $5.3 billion Big Housing Build to build more than 12,000 new homes throughout metro and regional Victoria, as well as supporting around 10,000 jobs, per year over the next four years, to supercharge Victoria’s economic recovery through the pandemic and beyond.

Combined with new housing from existing investments such as the Public Housing Renewal Program and Social Housing Growth Fund, construction of more than 15,800 new homes will begin over the next four years.  For more on the Big Housing Build visit www.vic.gov.au/homes-victoria-delivering

Quote attributable to Member for Buninyong Michaela Settle

“Housing affordability is a big issue and we’ve just seen a 10% increase in rents across Ballarat over the year. Housing affordability affects everyone, and I want to make sure the Victorian Government is helping where it counts.”

“I’m asking people to participate in a research project to help identify where housing affordability issues are and how it’s affecting our community; I’m also looking for ideas on how we can fix it.”

“The Victorian Government is investing a minimum of $80 million in new social and affordable housing in Ballarat, $20 million in Moorabool and $15 million in Golden Plains over the next four years. This will help provide more affordable housing but there is always more we can do.”