Australia has a worker housing shortage. Companies are turning to old infrastructure for solutions

  • 📰 abcnews
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 100 sec. here
  • 7 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 57%
  • Publisher: 83%

Housing News

Tourism,Employment,Workers

In popular tourist areas far from major cities, a lack of affordable accommodation for workers has seen staff jammed into unsuitable housing. But a new investment model for worker housing hopes to fix the problem.

In Falls Creek in Victoria's High Country, Kate Moegel has needed to rent two entire ski lodges to keep her business open.

Ms Moegel said the accommodation is not ideal, especially when the business tries to encourage workers to stay all year round. The privately owned development, construction and funds management company has stepped heavily into the worker accommodation market. "We need these beds for the staff, so that those businesses — like hospitality venues — know exactly the hours they can run," she said.The Grollo Group has a long lease at the Bogong Village site and last year bought Mt Hotham Airport, with a view to housing hundreds of staff for the nearby ski resort by winter in 2026.

With Grollo Group estimating a cost of around $100,000 per bed, it sees the potential to have a $1 billion business, based on building 10,000 beds, spreading into different regions across Australia. What is clear is that Australia has far less than it used to and a much smaller percentage of supported housing as a share of overall dwellings.Vienna is often pointed to as a Western city that is getting housing right."If you worked in construction, if you were a public servant, if you were a teacher, you often had housing provided to you by the government.

At a February sod-turning ceremony to mark the launch of a 135-apartment project in Zetland, near Sydney's key airport, Aware Super chief executive Deanne Stewart said funds could play an important role in "providing such crucial infrastructure", while still making good money for members. Brendan Stewart is someone who has benefited from the new approaches in Falls Creek, once the possums were cleared out.

He and colleagues in the 'Chef House' are delighted with the place, which has an outdoor deck and more space. Developers like Assemble can use the mega-funds available to invest at scale, building more and larger projects. Many of the units are sold at the market price - whatever they can raise at sale or auction - with a proportion kept to be rented at below-market rate.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 5. in CA

Canada Canada Latest News, Canada Canada Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

HESTA pressures Australia’s largest companies to adopt gender targets across entire organisationThe $87 billion fund has written to the ASX 300 companies it invests in to commit to ensuring 40 per cent of its staff are women.
Source: smh - 🏆 6. / 80 Read more »

Australia to ban life insurance companies from discriminating based on genetic testing resultsAlbanese government says people have been reluctant to get life-saving early testing because of the risk of being refused insurance
Source: GuardianAus - 🏆 1. / 98 Read more »

HESTA pressures Australia’s largest companies to adopt gender targets across entire organisationThe $87 billion fund has written to the ASX 300 companies it invests in to commit to ensuring 40 per cent of its staff are women.
Source: brisbanetimes - 🏆 13. / 67 Read more »

HESTA pressures Australia’s largest companies to adopt gender targets across entire organisationThe $87 billion fund has written to the ASX 300 companies it invests in to commit to ensuring 40 per cent of its staff are women.
Source: theage - 🏆 8. / 77 Read more »