Victorian State Budget 2025-26: Housing the missing piece to a self-determined future.
21st May 2025 – The Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum (AHHF) welcomes measures that protect critical homelessness services in the 2025-26 State Budget, and remains committed to working with Government to secure meaningful investment in long-term housing outcomes for Aboriginal Victorians.
Whilst the Budget reinforces commitments to self-determination, the absence of targeted Aboriginal housing investment highlights a critical gap – the ongoing lack of safe, secure and affordable housing for Aboriginal people.
“Self-determination cannot be realised without a home,” said Darren Smith, Chair of the Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum and CEO of Aboriginal Housing Victoria. “This budget seeks to ease cost-of-living pressures for Victorian families but once again overlooks Victoria’s most vulnerable and disproportionately disadvantaged families.”
“It recognises the pain of housing insecurity for many Victorians but fails to deliver the structural reforms needed to prevent the housing crisis from worsening for Aboriginal Victorians.”
The AHHF welcomes renewed funding for Aboriginal-specific Homelessness Entry Points and the Aboriginal Private Rental Assistance Program (APRAP), acknowledging the Government’s decision to prevent these services from lapsing, providing much-needed certainty and relief.
Mr Smith stresses that short-term service continuation, whilst welcome, cannot be a substitute for long-term investment into housing pathways and supply, “The reality is that the vast majority of Aboriginal Victorians are experiencing housing stress or homelessness – this is a crisis we cannot service our way out of.”
The AHHF called for $256 million in targeted, community-led investment to build thousands of new homes, create stronger pathways to homeownership, expand early interventions and culturally safe support, and end the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in homelessness services.
“We offered the Government a roadmap to turn rhetoric into results through the full implementation of Mana-na woorn-tyeen maar-takoort: The Victorian Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Framework,” said Mr Smith. “While we’re disappointed to see another opportunity missed, we remain hopeful and look ahead to next year’s Budget with anticipation – one that we hope finally delivers the investment needed to meet community need.”
The AHHF remains committed to working in partnership with the Victorian Government to ensure that every Aboriginal person has a home – and that future investment opportunities reflect this most basic right.
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Contact: communications@ahvic.org.au | 0456 622 885
Read the AHHF’s 2025-26 Budget Submission here.
