On the one year anniversary of the release of Victoria’s Housing Statement, CHP has released our inaugural Housing Insecurity Index. The Index brings together the latest available data on rent prices, the public housing waiting list, access to specialist homelessness services, housing stress and social housing stock to present a clearer picture of housing affordability.

The 2024 Index finds the key indicators of housing insecurity have worsened in the 12 months since the Housing Statement. Rents are continuing to grow at unsustainable rates alongside a stagnation in the proportion of public housing available in Victoria.

As the peak body representing the SHS, Council to Homeless Persons is committed to fostering a workforce that thrives. This report, and the potential for reform it spotlights, is an essential step towards achieving that goal.

CHP commissioned the report from RMIT University’s Workforce Innovation and Development Institute (WIDI) to understand the effects of the pressures under which the sector is operating, as well as other sector dynamics that affect the experience of the workforce and the Victorians they support. This, in turn, will enable better workforce planning and help us to identify initiatives that ensure SHS workers are duly recognised, supported, safe, healthy and fulfilled in their jobs.

Not a distant prospect, climate change is here now. CHP has commissioned Mark Furlong PhD to develop the report Looking it squarely in the eye: The relationship between climate change and homelessness, to examine the impact of climate change on people experiencing homelessness; survey what is being done to respond to these impacts; and consider where we might find ourselves in 25 years time.