Submission: Waterloo South Plan

The Tenants' Union brief comments on the Waterloo South proposal are informed by both our understanding of the inadequacies of our current housing system in delivering safe, affordable homes for everyone who rents their home, as well as the concerns of the local Waterloo South community directly impacted by the redevelopment of the site.

There is a pressing need for the NSW government to deliver new, additional non-market housing stock. The private rental market has demonstrated it cannot currently deliver housing that is genuinely affordable for those on low incomes, with the most recent Anglicare annual snapshot finding that only 1.6% of private rental properties across Australia would be affordable for a single person earning minimum wage, and very nearly zero for those relying on government income support. The current waiting list in NSW for social housing – an imperfect measure of need – was just under 50,000 applicants at 30 June 2021. This can only be expected to have increased over the past year.