Wollongong's homeless could soon be housed in vacant or underused properties as part of a pilot program.
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The NSW Government this week released a housing strategy for the state, outlining what they say is a 20-year vision for better housing across NSW.
Member for Kiama Gareth Ward said that the Housing 2041 strategy and an initial two-year action plan will focus on housing supply, diversity, affordability and resilience.
According to Mr Ward, the strategy and inaugural two-year action plan features initiatives to support better housing outcomes.
This includes a temporary supportive accommodation pilot with Wollongong City Council, that seeks to "use vacant land and buildings to deliver a safe home for those who need it".
Temporary supportive accommodation is the use of a vacant or underused building to provide temporary residential accommodation for homeless people.
A Wollongong City Council spokesperson said housing was a challenging issue across the state, and "in our community alone we have a range of concerns around homelessness, housing affordability and accessibility to emergency and temporary accommodation".
The spokesperson said these were complex issues and, while housing can not be tackled by any level of government alone, as a council they had a responsibility to advocate on behalf of all of those in their community.
"Council has been working proactively in this space with the NSW State Government on behalf of our community to identify some potential sites for housing demonstration projects," the spokesperson said.
According to the spokesperson, the NSW Government has provided high-level detail about the project, and council had identified options "to explore that may have the potential to provide temporary supportive accommodation in our city".
"One of these sites has an existing property on it while the other is a block of land," the spokesperson said.
"The focus of this project is on finding ways to repurpose unutilised land or property for temporary or short-term housing opportunities.
"We are committed to achieving positive outcomes for temporary supportive accommodation within our city and are at in the early phases of what we believe to be a very exciting project.
"These sites still need to be assessed against planning controls to determine a way forward."
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