The housing crisis is not news to anyone living in the Lower Hunter where we are seeing record housing prices coupled with very low rental vacancy rates.
An entire generation of Lower Hunter's young people are becoming accustomed to the confronting reality of being locked out of ever buying a home, while at the same time struggling to find somewhere to rent.
Consequently, people with good rental references, full-time employment and the capacity to service rents are unable to secure a rental property.
At the same time, there is not nearly enough social housing in the local area.
Indeed, there is not enough across the entire state.
Social housing is the safety net for the most vulnerable people in our community - without it we should expect to see homelessness grow.
In fact, specialist homelessness services in the Hunter Valley are at breaking point and struggling to deliver their emergency services because there are no properties into which to move their clients.
Many of the people they work with are women fleeing domestic violence.
If the current trend of this housing crisis continues unabated, everyone will feel its impact. There will be more losers and fewer winners as it continues to play out.
The housing crisis is yet another symptom of growing intergenerational inequality and this is something we can chose to address or we continue to leave it to the market to decide who gets to live in a house and who does not.
This growing inequality will ultimately serve to undermine the economy in the longer term, yet it continues with governments failing to come to terms with the crisis while also falling short of our expectations to create a more equal and just society.
The role of government is to create policy settings that will deliver outcomes in accordance with our shared values.
That is, the values of the people - not shareholders, not investors and definitely not the mates of politicians.
The drivers of the housing crisis are complex and so too are the solutions.
Even more difficult is the reality that it will take every level of government working together to identify and deliver better.
It is time to ask ourselves who we are, what we value and whether we are brave enough to take the necessary steps in order to assure greater equality for all, and the right for everyone to have some place to call home.
