Tamworth's social housing waiting list blows out to 10 years

Statistics released by the state government's Department of Communities and Justice show there were 452 people in the waiting list for a home in Tamworth at time of the latest count.

There were 29 people considered "priority".

The latest statistics show that the "expected waiting time" even for a home smaller than two bedrooms is between two and five years, in June last year.

To get a home with four bedrooms or more, people can expect to wait between five years and 10 years.

Homes North CEO Maree McKenzie said it's a list that has grown much longer in the last decade, particularly during the COVID-19 period.

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The state government would need to build an entire new suburb of social housing dwellings to clear the shortfall, she said.

The hundreds of people on the waiting list might be stuck living on couches or paying more than half their income on rent, or be a person in a wheelchair living in a home with stairs.

She said it's an extraordinarily diverse group.

"The similarity is financial stress," she said.

"When you look at the profile of people in financial stress it can be a lot of reasons. They could have had a severe car accident, used to be homeowners and because they are now permanently incapacitated, they don't have income to support their mortgage ...

"They need to go into social housing because we provide all the additional supports for them. We keep an eye out for when things are wrong."

For the dozens of priority cases, things are even worse: to be a priority you need to be actually homeless, or a victim domestic or family violence. Some disabled people can also be eligible.

In a city where about one-in-six people in Aboriginal, about 50 per cent of the social housing waiting list is made up of Aboriginal people, Ms McKenzie said.

The solution to the endless waiting list is simple, she said.

"Build more social housing," he said.

"And also I'd be reconfiguring or selling off a lot of the really old stock that costs us a lot to maintain... then take on those assets and build new properties that are more suitable for the climate."

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Tamworth Family Support Services service manager Lynda Townsend said it's a very tough time time to be an at-risk person.

The organisation is given a target of helping 300 people a year, but saw about twice that number last year, due to the greater number of people in need.

The service has already seen 135 clients in the first two months of the new financial year, 104 of them homeless people.

"The main [problem] is supply and demand both in social housing as well as the private rental market. Private rental markets in some cases are far too expensive for a lot of clients," she said.

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