Media release – TasCOSS, 14 November 2023
National social service peaks join forces to call for urgent funding boost for social, affordable housing and homelessness services
The nation’s peak bodies for social services will gather in Hobart today to call on state and federal ministers to ‘reset’ the tax system to drastically boost funding for social and affordable housing, as well as frontline homelessness services.
The Councils of Social Service (COSS) network, representing thousands of social service organisations, have penned an open letter (attached) to urge states, territories and the Commonwealth to agree to a sweeping overhaul of housing and homelessness policies and actions to ease cost of living pressure on low income households at next Monday’s (20 November) national meeting of housing ministers in Canberra.
Across Australia there are over 640,000 low income households with an unmet housing need experiencing housing insecurity (people who are homeless, living in overcrowded housing or spending more than 30% of income on rent).
Safe, secure and affordable shelter is a basic human right that is being denied to more and more Australians, particularly in the current context of the twin crises of unaffordable housing and the skyrocketing cost of living.
Over the past decade, Tasmania has experienced a prolonged period of rapidly rising rents and ever-dwindling vacancy rates. TasCOSS calls on the Tasmanian Government to work closely with their federal counterparts to make necessary changes to our tax system so dollars can flow to the pipeline of social, affordable housing as a matter of urgency.
