An increasing number of people from “middle Australia” accessed homelessness services for the first time as the coronavirus pandemic took hold and governments announced strict lockdown measures to suppress the spread of COVID-19.
The federal government’s income support packages, JobKeeper and JobSeeker, and the state’s moratorium on rental eviction prevented a “deluge” of middle-class Victorians from plunging into homelessness, a parliamentary committee has found.
The Victorian Parliament’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee on Tuesday published its interim report on the inquiry into the state government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, making a number of recommendations to the Andrews government.
The committee heard from a range of people and providers, including homelessness, tenant and domestic violence services, which all reported an increase in demand.
Tenants Victoria recorded a 400 per cent increase to their services after the Victorian government started introducing restrictions, including shutting down some businesses, designed to suppress the spread of coronavirus.
While Consumer Affairs Victoria reported almost 18,000 reduced rent agreements had been lodged through its website by July 5 – this equates to about 3 per cent of the total number of Victorian households renting. The average weekly reduction in rent was $155, or 27 per cent.
“National and state legislation such as JobKeeper, JobSeeker and Victoria’s eviction moratorium have protected some Victorians who may have been at risk of homelessness,” the committee found in its interim report.
“Evidence from the homelessness sector suggests that during the period March to May, the sector experienced an increase in demand for its services in general, and from segments of the Victorian community that had not accessed these services in the past.
“There are concerns from the sector that the economic effects of the COVID‑19 restrictions could lead to further demands on services and more homelessness.”
Council to Homeless Persons chief executive Jenny Smith had earlier told the committee the doubling of JobSeeker, the introduction of JobKeeper and the tenancy protections meant many middle-class Australians who had been economically affected by the crisis had been “able to hang on”.
The committee also recommended the state government develop a strategy to improve access to mental health support in regional and rural Victoria, following evidence the pandemic disproportionately affected people outside of Melbourne.
Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville said the pandemic exacerbated the mental health impacts of the bushfires – one of the country’s worst bushfire disasters.
