Goulburn Valley real estate agent Peter Cardamone would like to see more land rezoned for affordable housing to help get people off waiting lists and into homes.
In 2019, it was estimated that Greater Shepparton had the highest homeless rate in regional Victoria, with 5.56 homeless persons per 1000 people, and 1674 households on waiting lists for social housing.
Floods last year have only added people to those lists.
Greater Shepparton City Council has resolved to seek expressions of interest in a proposal to build affordable housing above a portion of the car park between High and Rowe Sts in Shepparton as one means of easing the crisis.
Mr Cardamone, the director of Cardamone Real Estate in Mooroopna, did not comment on that proposal as he was yet to see the details, but believed more land needed to be rezoned to alleviate the “unacceptable” housing crisis in Greater Shepparton.
Mr Cardamone said last year’s floods had exacerbated the housing shortage, but said there were strategies that could help to correct the problem.
“The biggest issue we’ve had, in October last year, was a flood,’’ he said.
“We had 60 to 80 properties inundated with water, so 60 to 80 families, and I would say 80 per cent of those were rental properties.
“I’m talking Mooroopna-Shepparton and so there’s a lot of pressure on real estate agents, tenants, landlords, insurance companies, builders and tradies.
“There’s still people that are living in caravans from October last year.
“This is not a third world country.
“We’re just one of a number of regional centres that are in the same position, whether Bendigo, Ballarat, Albury-Wodonga, Geelong have had floods (or not), they’ve still got their own housing crisis issues, and that’s without metro Melbourne.
“It’s just unacceptable.
“We’ve got to get these people into housing, and that’s important.”
Mr Cardamone would like to see more farming land rezoned for the development of affordable housing.
“I’m talking about opportunities for low-income people to buy land or for Beyond Housing and government departments to build housing for people who may never be able to buy themselves,” he said.