By Corey Everitt
Single mothers facing eviction and children sleeping in tents is a reality for many in Cardinia and a local is pleading for serious action to be taken as families becoming homeless are only rising in the midst of a cost-of-living and housing crisis.
Pakenham’s Angel Chichi has long been helping those in dire need at Purton Place Preloved Shop with no-question-asked immediate assistance.
However, the situation in Cardinia has seemingly gone from bad to worse.
In just the past month, Angel described the numerous people in harrowing situations she has been in contact with.
From a single mother with four children – two of which with disabilities – being forced to sleep in a tent for the past year to a teenager escaping family violence being taken in by a local family.
A range of people are falling through the system, a local teacher and her child are facing eviction with little prospect of acquiring a new home as she is being priced out of the rental market.
Institutions are reaching out to her; an NDIS coordinator has reached out about a single mother becoming homeless with her two children who are on NDIS.
Angel describes how the homeless are staying in places like Bourke Park near Pakenham Station or in front of Pakenham’s shops to which they are promptly being moved on by police or shop owners. She says many are hidden from public view, staying in abandoned properties throughout the shire.
“The stats aren’t showing the real homeless situation because they don’t have that information,” she said.
“All the services are at breaking point, they really are.
“I’ll speak to them all and they will say the same thing everytime, Angel we are at capacity and we don’t have any more room.
“The burden is put on the people who are just answering the phone, behind a desk and if they don’t have any funding and they’re at capacity, what do they do?”
When even services are struggling to keep up, all Angel can do is try and reach out to the public’s good will to help, many locals have responded to her call out for help and housed people temporarily.
A recent post from Angel on facebook group Pakenham Noticeboard, urging locals to the spread the word about the dire situation, garnered a significant response from locals sharing and contacting local MPs and councillors.
However, she doesn’t think it should resort to this.
“I find it really hard that the public are the ones opening up their homes and hearts to the community, if they have got a spare room,” she said.
“That is a lot for someone to take on, a stranger and then they are taking on a family that has trauma and they have no experience dealing with that sort of thing.”
The services are flooded because help from the State or Federal Government is lacking.
“They are not getting enough funding,” Angel said.
“You speak to an MP and they go it’s State and then you speak to them it’s Federal.
“Everyone just seems to be chasing their tail and not really committing.
“I can only fight for our shire and try and get as much housing as possible, but it’s coming at a great cost, we are not coping and we don’t really know where to go.”
From the 2021 Census, 14 in every 10,000 residents in Cardinia Shire were experiencing homelessness, living in improvised dwellings, supported accommodation or other temporary housing. 5000 households were experiencing housing stress with at least 30 percent of income going to mortgage or rent payments.
Pakenham is the centre of the shire’s rental crisis, in February Suburbtrends reported it as the sixth worst Victorian suburb for rental stress with a 0.5 percent vacancy rate and a 13 percent increase to rent in the previous year.
Mid-last year, Suburbtrends listed Pakenham in the top 25 worst in the country for rental stress.
“This one here, they have been on the waitlist for housing for four years and they have been made a priority,” Angel said, speaking of locals struggling with housing.
“Another lady messaged me, she is a pensioner and her rent just went up by $400 a month, she has only got $100 left a week to buy her food and pay her bills.
“They are turning up to inspections and there are anywhere between 50 to 100 at one inspection.
“I know they don’t say there is discrimination, but there is. A family income is going to far outweigh a single mum.”
Housing has been a major talking point for both levels of Government, such as the State Government’s move to build 800,000 houses over the next decade. However, for Angel the crisis is already here and there needs to be bold action now to get roofs over heads and mend the rental market.
“Everyone deserves a roof over their head, but ten years is too long, why aren’t they looking into alternatives for now,” she said.
“It’s still 10 years away and not all of those 800,000 are going to be right here in Melbourne.
“Everyone is just in survival mode and desperation.”
This is taking a toll on people in the front-lines, for Angel herself she was recently rushed to Casey Hospital after weeks-long chest pains exacerbated. Her electrocardiogram came back irregular, after explaining what she does for a living the cardiologist advised it was stress and brought in a social worker to recommend she take time off.
“I can’t, if I go then that is just another service leaving the area and people are exhausting every single service, it affects not just me, but everyone,” she said.
“This is where all of us are suffering mental health issues when we are getting all these messages, all these phone calls, there’s nowhere for them to go.
“It’s always like this, but there just seems to be more and more.”
Cardinia Shire Council works with services purposed to help those experiencing homelessness, while also negotiating with developers to get dwellings dedicated to the most vulnerable in the community. This is all done while local government effectively have no power to directly address homelessness nor the housing market.
Mayor Kowarzik said Cardinia needs more help in housing.
“While Council does not directly provide services to respond to homelessness, we work with service providers such as ERMHA and WAYYS, who are funded to provide housing and homelessness services. There is no quick fix, but our community needs more help than it’s currently getting.”
A spokesperson for the State Government’s Homes Victoria said that the building of more social housing in Cardinia is underway.
“We are housing as many people as we can as quickly as possible, with more than 7,000 households moving into social housing across the state last financial year – an increase of 29 per cent from the previous year,“ they said.
“We know there is more to do and that’s why we are building more homes than ever before,through programs such as the Big Housing Build, Public Housing Renewal Program, Regional Housing Fund, and the Commonwealth Government’s Social Housing Accelerator fund.“
“In Shire of Cardinia alone, $32 million has been invested through the Big Housing Build and other social housing programs since November 2020 to build 84 new homes, with 44 of these already completed. “In 2023-24, the Government is investing $22.4 million in funding to homelessness services in the Southern Melbourne Area, which includes Cardinia. This supports people at risk or experiencing homelessness through Initial Assessment and Planning, the Private Rental Assistance Program,Housing Establishment Funding brokerage,transitional housing, case management support, and accommodation for young people.“
