Homes away from home

By Russell Bennett
SEASONAL workers and the region’s homeless would be put up in boarding houses under proposals to tackle critical housing shortages.
Yarra Valley farmers say they don’t want to be both employers and landlords but they do want to help seasonal labourers find accommodation in the area.
The farmers, along with hirers and tourism operators, met at Yarra Ranges Council offices on Thursday 9 June..
More than 25 members of Agribusiness Yarra Valley plus councillors and shire staff floated ideas including looking at private enterprise as well as the radical concept of rooming houses.
Chandler Ward councillor Graham Warren, who attended the meeting, described the shire’s housing shortage as “acute”.
He said the shire did not want to send a message that seasonal workers and disadvantaged residents weren’t welcome in the area.
Cr Warren said turning to private enterprise to find suitable housing sites was an option, as was looking at a way around planning scheme restrictions which did not permit on-site accommodation.
“But it’s difficult because farmers don’t want to have to be both landlords and employers,” he said.
He said one option mentioned was rooming houses, where seasonal workers such as fruit pickers would live in a house for half the year and disadvantaged Yarra Ranges residents the other half.
“But if there’s only a six month window, it makes it difficult to move people in and out,” he said.
Cr Warren said those found illegally camping at Lillydale Lake were symptomatic of the wider problem.
The Mail reported in April that people working casual labour jobs, such as fruit picking at local vineyards and orchards, saw the lake as a prime location to stay.
Some of the ranges’ homeless and most disadvantaged also snatched the opportunity.
That was until the council outlawed camping on its land and roadsides without a permit at its 12 April meeting.