COFFS Harbour received an unwelcome national focus on Monday, September 3, after a Four Corners story about housing affordability and availability and homelessness was aired.

The program highlighted issues in Bellingen and Coffs Harbour and pointed out that similar issues exist in other regional towns.

Support services on the Coffs Coast have seen a dramatic increase in people experiencing homelessness and people seeking help to ease the burden of cost of living pressures, much of which is because of dramatically increasing rents.

People with jobs, including families, are sleeping in cars or tents or couch surfing.

In Coffs Harbour, vacancy rates are 1.5 percent, down from 5 percent a decade ago.

Rents have gone up by more than $100 over the past two years, almost double the NSW average.

In Bellingen, rents have risen 48 percent, to December 2021, the highest in NSW, three times the average in regional areas and sixteen times that in capital cities.

Only 3.1 percent of homes in Coffs Harbour are affordable for people on low incomes, the majority being one bedroom units which are unsuitable for families.

There is a ten year wait for public housing, amongst the longest in NSW.

Four Corners highlighted that there are social housing homes lying empty and some social housing residents are living in sub-standard, often overcrowded houses because of poor maintenance.

Coffs Coast residents are well aware of the shortage of affordable housing and rental accommodation, which is primarily because of lack of housing stock, increasing numbers of sea change/tree change migration during the pandemic and the increase in properties used for Airbnb.

Martin Wells, Principal at McGrath Estate Agents, told News Of The Area, “There is a severe supply shortage which results in rents increasing.”

He said a 2012 report estimated that Coffs Harbour needed 500 new homes each year, but supply falls well short of this.

With regard to affordable housing, Mr Wells said there has been some first owner support from governments in the past but this has tapered off.

When discussing housing availability, he said, “We’re aware of employers who ask for evidence of secure accommodation in job interviews before offering a job.”

Member for Coffs Harbour Gurmesh Singh said, “The lack of housing and housing affordability is a growing problem in our coastal towns and cities and is being driven by housing supply failing to keep up with ever increasing demand.”

Mr Singh said the NSW Government is working with the City of Coffs Harbour on the renewal of the Argyll Estate which is hoped will provide refreshed and upgraded social housing as well as providing more affordable homes for our community.

Mr Singh said zoning for new homes and increasing density, as well as the assessment of development applications, are the responsibility of Council; and the NSW Government is committed to helping councils deliver new homes through the $300m Accelerated Infrastructure Fund to help councils fast-track the delivery of essential infrastructure and therefore deliver new homes faster.

“While the Four Corners story focused on social housing, the entire spectrum of housing is in short supply and it is our most disadvantaged in society who fall off the bottom of the housing ladder and I hear their stories too often,” Mr Singh said.

“Recent influxes of people from places like Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra have improved our regions in many ways – but we need to ensure our housing stock is increased accordingly.

City of Coffs Harbour Councillor Tony Judge, who is the Labor candidate for Coffs Harbour in the upcoming State election, was interviewed on the Four Corners episode.

In relation to the Argyll Street redevelopment he told News Of The Area, “Unless it’s social housing, there are no constraints for purchasers to turn an ‘affordable house’ into an Airbnb.”

Cr Judge said Airbnb listings have increased from 580 to more than 700 since 2018, resulting in more than 100 properties no longer being available for rental.

“Developers will sell houses at the market price, so there is no guarantee they will be ‘affordable’.”

Cr Judge said that in the immediate future, the Labor Party is committed to accelerate the maintenance of existing social housing to make it liveable.

He pointed out that construction of social housing has not kept pace with the demand, and with rents rising faster than wages, more people are becoming dependent on social housing.

“We have become like the US with a rising class of the ‘working poor’,” Cr Judge said.

He said the situation is more complex than what Four Corners presented because people on whom businesses rely cannot afford to live in the area because housing costs have outstripped liveable wages.

Cr Judge explained that the housing crisis affects not just low income earners, but other sectors such as health services.

For example, many nurses are employed on contract, and, as such, find it almost impossible to rent or buy a house, because long-term financial stability is difficult to show a real estate agent or bank.

Therefore, they don’t come to the region.

He predicted that housing availability will get even worse when the bypass begins in earnest with the influx of road workers.

By Andrew VIVIAN