Reclaiming Communities: The Push to Prioritize Residential Housing Over Airbnb Profits

Across Victoria, councillors and council candidates are jumping at this new opportunity to crack down on Airbnb and free up homes for renters and first home buyers to live in. In Maryborough, creatives and workers are being priced out of our community. And this will help make sure the, what we love about Maribyrnong can stay in Maribyrnong. In Man Alexander Shire, where I’m from, when we price out our community members on lower incomes, we’re not only losing our community members, we’re losing our essential workers. And when we lose our essential workers, we can’t just get them from neighbouring suburbs, we lose our services. I’m so lucky to live in Fitzroy and I lived there when I was a student in a share house. And it’s just not an experience that people can afford to have anymore. And I think everyone should be able to afford to come and live in our amazing communities. In Basco’s community, members are sleeping in tents while holiday makers sleep in their homes. In Yarra, we’ve been trying to make change for 18 months on this issue. And these reforms will allow us to take decisive action to turn hotels back into homes. In Melbourne. These reforms will improve the quality of life for everybody living in Southbank Docklands and the CBD from the inner city to rural and regional towns. Homes should be for people, not for profit.