An affordable housing initiative in Melbourne’s western suburbs will be the first project in Victoria funded by the Australia Government's National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) to open its doors when the first tenants arrive in May.
The apartment complex will provide 66 separate units to a mix of low-income singles and families who are at risk of homelessness in Seddon in Melbourne’s west.
Mission Australia State Director, Paul Bird, said the project was a great opportunity to provide low-cost housing in an area in desperate need of affordable housing.
“Mission Australia is delighted to be the first provider of affordable housing under NRAS in Victoria to support disadvantaged people in the Seddon area,” said Mr Bird.
“There will be 44 studio, seven one-bedroom, 14 two-bedroom apartments and a training café for residents.”
One of the unique aspects of the Seddon NRAS project is that some of the work in getting the apartments ready for occupancy is being carried out by young trainees involved in Mission Australia’s Urban Renewal Enterprise Employment Program (UREEP).
“UREEP is a social enterprise that provides landscaping, construction and building maintenance for companies, government and private individuals,” said Mr Bird.
“As a social enterprise, UREEP operates as a regular business with a professional standard of work, but it does so to achieve a social outcome – to provide on-the-job, real-world-experience training to mostly young, long-term unemployed people, with limited skills, to maximise their chances of a future job.”
At the Seddon Apartments UREEP workers are building fencing and providing landscape gardening services.
Mission Australia will establish a branch of UREEP – along with a range of other community services – at the new apartment complex to engage young people in the area.
Federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek, who visited the site today, said the Rudd Government was committed to providing more affordable housing.
“Having a decent and affordable place to live can make all the difference to a family trying to stay afloat or a young person making their start in life,” said Ms Plibersek.
“The National Rental Affordability Scheme aims to improve affordability in the private rental sector by requiring rents to be at least 20 per cent below market value.
“The result is that there will be an extra 50,000 low cost and good quality rental homes across the country that simply would not exist without this scheme.
“The Government is also building more than 20,000 new social housing dwellings as part of the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan.
“Mission Australia’s National Rental Affordability Scheme project is providing affordable rental homes and local job opportunities for long term unemployed people in the local Seddon area,” Ms Plibersek said.
For further information about Mission Australia, click here
For further information about Mission Australia's Housing Projects, click here
0 comments:
Post a Comment