3 days ago
Developer builds smaller dwellings as Albany housing shortage grows
The population of one of Australia's fastest-growing regional cities is rising as sea changers flock to the region.
But away from a coastline framed by million-dollar homes, a crisis is growing.
Catherine Sawtell said four weeks ago she was staying in a house with rats under the floorboards and a possum in the roof.
The university-educated 64-year-old once owned her own home in Albany, 420 kilometres south of Perth, but became homeless in about 2019 when her marriage broke down.
She bounced from refuge to shelter, sleeping on couches and in share homes, eventually moving to Queensland in 2021 to stay with a friend.
Ms Sawtell returned a year later to Albany, but affording a home in the coastal city on a disability pension proved impossible.
"I have an excellent rental record … I'm not on any blacklists or anything like that, but I couldn't get anything."
After five years homeless, a social housing provider helped Ms Sawtell secure accommodation that allowed her to start rebuilding her life.
"And I bought a little second-hand car, so I'm mobile now."
Her two-bedroom home is one of 12 units designed by affordable housing provider Advance Housing with people like Ms Sawtell in mind.
Chief executive John Lysaught said demand for social housing had risen by 30 per cent in the past 18 months, but much of the available stock was unfit for purpose.
He said fewer than 6 per cent of development approvals in the past five years were for one and two-bedroom homes, but almost 90 per cent of people on the social housing waiting list were seeking smaller dwellings.
"For pure social housing, there's over 750 eligible tenancies on the waitlist for the Great Southern, and over 570 of those are in Albany," Mr Lysaught said.
Albany has become the fastest-growing regional centre in Western Australia and the fourth-fastest nationally, according to a recent report by the Regional Australia Institute.
It found the region, with a population of about 50,000, experienced a 200 per cent rise in internal migration in the 12 months to December.
Support services fear the increasing population will worsen the housing crisis.
"It seems to be getting worse if anything," Southern Aboriginal Corporation deputy chief executive Oscar Colbung said.
"Demand has increased so much that there's virtually nothing available more broadly."
WA Housing Minister John Carey said the government was working with community housing providers to deliver more social and affordable housing across the state, targeted towards seniors and those with disabilities.
Mr Lysaught's plans for Albany included 36 and 51-unit developments, but getting ahead of the shortage was an ongoing struggle.
"There's lots being done about it, both by government and by community providers, but it's going to take some time to try and catch up."
