Are you in temporary housing and looking for longer-term options?
Moving around is a tiring and stressful process, especially if you can’t stay anywhere for a long period. When applying for long-term housing, there are different long-term housing options such as renting in the private rental market or applying for social housing. The diagram below shows how different types of social housing are related to one another:
Social Housing
Getting into public housing can be difficult. There are currently around 82,000 people on the waiting list for public housing.
What is social housing?
The term ‘social housing’ can sometimes be confusing—it includes both public housing and community housing options as explained below.
Public Housing
Public housing is provided by Department of Human Services—Office of Housing at an affordable rent that is calculated as a percentage of household income. Waiting lists in Victoria are very long, which means that public housing is certainly not the way to solve your immediate housing crisis.
There are different housing types offered by the Office of Housing. These can include high-rise apartments, medium-density apartments (often referred to as ‘walk ups’ as they don’t have a lift), townhouses and houses. A general rule-of-thumb is that if you list your preference to live in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, expect to be offered a high-density or medium-density apartment. The further out you go, the more likely you are to be offered a house.
Community Housing
Community housing is provided through non-government and not-for-profit organisations in Victoria. These organisations include housing associations and housing providers. They offer long-term housing options to tenants at an affordable rent. They are separate from the Office of Housing and you need to contact the organisations directly to make an application.
The important thing to remember when applying for community housing is not to rely on just one option—you should make contact with, and apply to, as many suitable organisations as possible to ensure you keep your options open.
In addition to the information on this site, you can download this 2012 WIRE Information Booklet (PDF) but please note that some resources in it will be out of date.
