THE pressing issues of housing insecurity, homelessness and the housing affordability crisis in Newcastle must be addressed and we cannot wait for government, says geriatrician Dr John Ward.
That is what the Housing Older People Project is getting on with, exploring initiatives such as home share, for which the group now has funding.
"We are looking for a project manager," Dr Ward said.
The home share concept involves linking up an older person who needs help to stay in their home with a younger person who agrees to help out.
That help may include cooking, cleaning, shopping or gardening as well as providing company and the security of having someone else sleeping in the home.
The alliance has received $150,000 in funding to progress the project which will also involve joining the Home Share Australia New Zealand Alliance (HANZA).
HANZA board director and Homeshare Development Officer Wendy Francis will address a meeting of the Hunter Ageing Alliance on Friday.
Pacific Link CEO Ian Lynch, who is based on the Central Coast but has plans to expand into the Hunter, will also attend, along with Kate Davies from Homelessness NSW.
Mr Lynch will speak to his community housing organisation's success with for-purpose real estate options, helping to provide affordable rentals and transforming end-of-life social housing properties into socially inclusive communities.
Dr Davies, who is based in Newcastle has been involved with the Housing for Older People Project for some time, applauded the work the group was doing.
"It is so important because older people is one of the fastest growing groups experiencing homelessness, particularly women over 50," Dr Davies said. "The reasons older women for example are experiencing homelessness is a lifetime of gender pay gap, so they are finding themselves with really low levels of financial security, and no or low levels of superannuation.
"So with an increasingly unstable, inaccessible and unaffordable housing market it doesn't take much to go wrong for someone to find themselves homeless or at risk of homelessness and we are really doing a poor job societally in recognising the value and strengths of older people and that's part of the reason these issues have gone under the radar and been so poorly responded to."
A lot of the work they were doing was necessary because government hasn't fulfilled its responsibility around access to adequate and affordable housing, particularly social housing, she said.
Another affordable housing option in the pipeline is meanwhile use - re-purposing vacated or disused properties, including vacant aged care facilities.
"We are looking at the moment at a vacant nursing home," Dr Ward said.
"If the organisation will let us use it for a number of years, then an organisation called Housing All Australians, which started in Victoria, they come in and refurbish it. They have been in newcastle to look at another home which fell over
"It goes to a community housing provider to run it and wrap around services to hopefully help them to get into permanent housing."
Dual occupancy is another avenue which the Housing for Older People Project is exploring, as well as tiny houses.
