At a rare not-for-profit housing development in Corrimal, the kitchens have never been cooked in, no shoe has yet scuffed the floors and the rooms are light, bright and considered.
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For 34 lucky tenants, these are the spoils of an often unkind housing lottery.
The Housing Trust is preparing to hand over keys to its completed $22 million development on Robert St, a combination of seven social housing and 27 affordable housing properties.
But with 3500 people on the region's social housing wait list and countless others seeking affordable rents in the private market, the system continues to create far more losers than winners.
"For every person that we call and say, 'yes you have a home', there are dozens, regrettably, that we have to either leave on the waiting list - typically in excess of ten years [for social housing] - or alternatively, there is no list for people needing affordable housing," said Housing Trust CEO Michele Adair, speaking at the development's official opening on Monday.
Robert Street's seven incoming social housing residents are mostly elderly and single. Their rents are capped at 25 per cent of household income - about $183 weekly for a one-bedroom unit.
Five of the residents need significant in-home care and support. The majority were house-bound and had been living in "completely unsuitable or unsafe properties" until now, Ms Adair said. Skyrocketing rents in the private market had recently pushed one into homelessness. Another comes to stable housing having suffered lifelong, significant trauma.
"Being here is actually going to allow them the safety and the dignity that we all deserve," Ms Adair said.
"At our very core what we do is build houses and create homes that we expect that we would be able to walk into and be able to say, 'I'd be happy and proud if my mum lived here'."
The Housing Trust has taken on a bank loan to finance the Robert Street homes, on land that was once a school. The project was built with development partner Traders in Purple, as part of the NSW Government's Communities Plus initiative.
Ms Adair named reasonably high-earning professionals - nurses, teachers and pre-school directors - as among those who would meet a wage eligibility test for the 27 affordable housing properties, where rents are subsidised.
"That's how out-of-control and how broken the housing market is," she said.
"We expect that over time that some of the tenants that are going to be taking up some of the affordable units and townhouses here will be able, as a consequence of affordable, reasonable rent for a period of time, be able to move into market rent or hopefully home ownership - wouldn't that be a wonderful thing?"
The Housing Trust is pushing government to build another 5000 social housing homes a year, for the next 10 years, to meet the state's housing crisis.
It is calling for one in every five new homes to be set aside as affordable housing, a goal raised with NSW Housing Minister Melinda Pavey on Monday.
"It's a good conversation to have, but we also have to be very aware that sometimes you can make a firm decision somewhere, and have unintended consequences," Mrs Pavey said.
"This is just one of hundreds of social housing projects across the state. The NSW Government can't do it alone, we need to work with the private sector, community housing providers and different levels of government in order to keep pace with the growing need for social and affordable housing."