The real problem is the lazy and feckless public service we are saddled with. I was born in the English equivalent of public housing. It used to be rents ontime everytime. There are ways such as income sequestering that will ensure this but there is always 20+ million owed that could buy more housing. Yearly inspections of properties, no inspection, eviction! If they did this it would go a long way to greatrly assist this situation. Furthermore if the tenants do not like arduous conditions as suggested they can alweay just move aside and let a more deserving case get in.
Also single pensioners living in a large house is nonsense they have to live in suitible circumstances and help others. A simple assets test where if a tenant buys a property they pay a commercial rent would also be a good idea.
All hopeless as the public service would only sabotage the right way.

The problem is not enough housing - buy up more properties or build is the solution. The social and economic costs of government housing shortages surely demand an initial outlay.

Many of those on the waiting lists have a disability either physical or mental illness or are on very low incomes. The impact on inflation to cost of living bought about by higher wages at the middle and top end make it impossible for some to be able to afford private rents.

Perhaps in the interim more could be done to subsidise the private rents but in the long term it simply has to be more housing. There is some merit in the idea above of income sequestering for repeat offenders.

Many of these online comments suggest a growing downward envy in Australia but no-one is willing to reduce their standards of living (ie. no more bargaining for pay rises by the middle/top end while lamenting those seeking to increase the minimum wage), to ensure we don't exacerbate the situation and create a greater number of working poor.

And of course the fundamental problem underlying this is population growth that creates the requirement for more housing and, when that cannot be built fast enough, there is a housing crisis and a housing affordability crisis. Also, since population growth reduces per capita wealth for people already in the area (creates pressure on public services etc. without commensurate infrastructure growth) it is putting people who already have housing under more pressure (higher rents/mortgage repayments with degrading services) leading to the negative attitudes referred to. The population growth of Victoria is especially sad in this case because, as Birrel points out, Victoria's booming economy is literally based on housing construction - they import far more than they export so Victoria has become a parasite on the rest of the nation. This is a story that can only end very badly (unless the Victorians miraculously develop an export industry that is competitive with China's or they discover rich mineral deposits within their borders (or maybe they can make more police dramas and become the Hollywood of the southern hemisphere).

There is apparently an international standard of measurement of need for social housing. Australia in its best areas provides just one third of the recommended number, in its worst one fifth of the recommended world standard. No wonder there is a twenty year wait! This situation has been allowed to develop because on the "shallow understanding" and the discriminatory attitude of our community, and therefore of our governments, to people who need this form of housing. It is yet another area of social service provision in which our country falls so far behind other comparable countries.

You just can't win in public housing- either you are the low-class type that people accuse as being hives for criminality- or you are the high-quality water-view middle-class type such as those overlooking Sydney's Iron Cove Bridge, that everyone gets jealous and sour grapes over.

Of course, private property developers despise them too.

Personally, I'd support MORE public houses- at least, that any future developments are public housing, especially with urban-redevelopment and building over railways on the cards, we'd want to do it properly and ensure rents are low enough for people to actually move out and LIVE in them.

Especially if it means putting a stop to greedy land developers adding to our urban-sprawl woes by mowing down our top farmland to stick their sardine cans.

Remember folks, low-rent non-profit housing is good for the economy- every dollar less someone spends on their rent is money that they will likely give to you in transactions!

I am very familiar with someone who lives in a block of about 18 one bedroom commission units. Unfortunately most of the responsible tenants have been forced to move out due to the behaviour of the gradual replacement by ex recidivist jail internees and psychiatric cases. The former continue to deal in drugs and steal. The latter obviously don't take their medication and create screaming noises and have no consideration of others by their behaviour of playing music and making noise all night. There is a constant flow of people feeding their habit of drugs and prostitution. The police are in constant attendance from complaints from neighbours and even the armed response group have broken down doors in their raids. My friend finds he is intimidated by his fellow tenants and any approach to the housing commission is greeted with "If you don't like it, move out" The housing commission has its hands tied by having to be an emergency shelter, so there is a constant demand for accommodation by unsuitable people. Unfortunately this impacts on those who do the right thing and are responsible tenants who have to put up with their immediate neighbours. Do the right thing and you are penalised. No one in the units appears to do any legitimate work and the majority are parasites on society. Mostly, but perhaps not all, self inflicted it seems.

We seem to live in a society now where excuses are made for so many intractable and dissolute people while the majority suffer.