- Money provided to homeless services provider St Patrick's Community Support Centre
- Ruah Community Services and Wungening Aboriginal Corporation will assist St Pat's
- Targeted assistance for Rockingham and Mandurah
The housing crisis in Western Australia remains one of two headline items about the WA Government, the other being health.
Today, Minister for Child Protection; Women’s Interests; Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence; Community Services, Simone McGurk, announced the state government will be providing $2.4 million to support homelessness in Mandurah and Rockingham.
The funding is part of a contract with Fremantle-based homeless services not-for-profit St Patrick’s Community Support Centre.
St Patrick’s “will receive $2.4 million to lead a specialist consortium group delivering place-based and culturally safe services to support vulnerable rough sleepers into long-term accommodation with wraparound supports.”
The services on offer will also be tailored in order to “help address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people among rough sleepers in the area, Wungening Aboriginal Corporation will place senior Aboriginal leaders in governance roles and employ indigenous service delivery staff to ensure all outreach work is delivered with an emphasis on culturally appropriate practices.”
“The aim of the program [Housing First Support Service] is to specifically address the individual needs of chronic rough sleepers to manage the underlying causes and contributors to their homelessness, and help them to get their lives back on track.”
Rockingham and Mandurah markets
Rental vacancy rates for Rockingham remain at exceptionally low levels, it bottomed out at 0.3% in November last year, and only ticked up slightly when the moratorium on rentals ended earlier this year; vacancies have since trended down again, currently 0.6%.
Rockingham, 6168
[Select part of the chart to zoom in on various years, and ‘reset zoom’ button to return]
Mandurah saw similar vacancy rate trends and also currently sits at 0.6%.
Mandurah, 6210
Asking rents have also been rising gradually since around 2018, houses fetching around $400 per week in Rockingham. That represents $180 lower asking rent than the rest of Perth.
Rockingham, 6168
Perth
