- In short: "Joanne" has been on the public housing waiting list for three years but has been forced to move her three children from hotels to shelters and back because there is no availability yet
- What's next?: The Tenants Union says the situation is bad and getting worse, with the number of people asking a government housing service for help increasing 10 per cent over the last five years
For Joanne* and her family, becoming homeless has meant constantly moving between hotels and struggling to survive financially and mentally.
"To start off with, I had a really good mindset about it," she said.
"I would say to the kids 'this is like a holiday' and try to keep it positive … but the longer it got, the worse my mental health was and the harder it was to keep positive.
"Now they don't see it as a holiday anymore."
Joanne became homeless as a result of being a victim of family violence and suffers from depression and anxiety.
She and her three children have been homeless for 14 months and have moved between six hotels, a caravan park and a couple of shelters.
Joanne doesn't have a car, so depending on where she is living, getting her children to school can be a struggle.
"That is obviously impacting them a lot, they're missing out on a lot that they should be learning."
"I feel like I am not doing a good enough job as a parent," she said.
Joanne's eldest child lost their after-school job because of the constant moving and difficulty accessing transport and she said that had a big impact on their mental health.
"Didn't want to go to school, didn't want to get out of bed, talked about self-harm and not wanting to be here," she said.
The cost of being homeless
Joanne pays more than half of her pension (57 per cent) for her accommodation and Tasmania's Housing Connect pays the difference depending on which hotel she is staying at.
It means she has about $290 left a week to pay for food, transport, phone and medications.
She is also paying for a monthly storage fee for her furniture, which meant this week she was left with just $26 to last until the following week.
She has had to borrow money from a friend to get by.
Joanne recalls staying at a hotel near Hobart airport for 11 days without transport or cooking facilities.
"The only place that we could get any food was either at the restaurant … which was extremely expensive, I couldn't afford that every night, or the petrol station.
"I remember going over and buying four meat pies and four drinks and it was $52 … and I just thought to myself if I took that $52 to the supermarket, I could have bought so much more stuff."
"We were eating this meat pie and a drink and we didn't know tomorrow what we were going to be eating," she said.
Moving from place to place without transport means the family can only carry a small bag of clothes each.
Besides a pencil case, there's no room for toys for the children.
"It's just too hard to move with toys, we tried, we did try to start with but they wanted every teddy, every toy that reminded them of home and I just couldn't do that."
'We have money for an AFL stadium, why don't we have money for homeless people?'
Joanne is one of 4,600 Tasmanians waiting for public housing.
She is classified as the highest priority and calls weekly, sometimes more often, to check on whether there is a home available for her and her children.
"I've been on there [the wait list] for three years."
The Tasmanian government has promised to build 10,000 social and affordable houses over the next 10 years — but Joanne feels more could be done now.
"How much is this new [AFL] stadium going to cost? Hundreds of millions of dollars? If we have the money for that why don't we have the money for homeless people?
"And by homeless people, I don't mean homeless from their own actions I mean homeless from something they couldn't control.
"I can't wrap my head around that."
Homelessness 'bad and getting worse'
Principal solicitor with the Tenants Union in Tasmania, Ben Bartl, said it cost the government more to put people up in hotels than it did to provide long-term housing.
But there were not enough homes available "so we have no choice but to provide these services to people while the homes are being built".
He has obtained data from Tasmanian government housing provider, Housing Connect, which he said showed "the situation was bad and getting worse".
In the past five years, there's been a 10 per cent jump in the number of homeless people asking Housing Connect for help.
Those who remained homeless after seeking help has increased by 45 per cent.
"It's extremely disheartening that in the five years following the housing summit we haven't seen the urgent action we so desperately need," Mr Bartl said.
The figures also show a drop (45 per cent) in the number of homeless family violence clients who were able to secure accommodation.
"This data shows is that many cases they're having to stay in houses where they will continue to be the victims of family violence because there simply isn't the safe affordable homes available for them to move into," he said.
Recent census figures show the rate of homelessness in Tasmania increased from 24 people per 10,000 in 2006 to 42 people per 10,000 people in 2021 — the largest increase of any Australian state.
Mr Bartl said more funding and more houses were needed but in the meantime the government could make policy decisions which would help.
"Regulating the short-stay accommodation sector so entire properties cannot be converted to short-stay would be a good start," he said.
"Landlords who have empty homes, the government could be encouraging those people to return those properties to the long-term rental market."
Funding per capita highest in Tasmania: Minister
The Minister for State Development, Construction and Housing, Guy Barnett, said the government was committed to reducing homelessness and housing stress.
"The Tasmanian government invests over $38 million each year in specialist homelessness services and more housing and homelessness funding per capita than any other state at $327.92 per person, more than 40 per cent more than the national average of $230.62 per person," he said.
"Housing Connect does not use Airbnb properties for emergency brokered accommodation, only motels and hotels."
In the last financial year, Housing Connect spent $441,838 in brokered accommodation.
Mr Barnett said Tasmania had 18 shelters for "crisis, transitional and emergency accommodation".
"We encourage anyone who is homeless or who is at risk of homelessness to contact Housing Connect."
The government has previously said that regulating short-stay accommodation is a matter for local government.
* Name has been changed
