Apollo Bay locals forced to leave due to housing shortage
The picturesque seaside town of Apollo Bay in southwestern Victoria is a popular place for visitors but it's coming at a big cost to the local residents. Affordable housing has become difficult to find - rents have skyrocketed and many homes are now only for short-stay accommodation. It's lead to people moving away and a worker shortage.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Apollo Bay isn't the only town or centre that is faced with these problems.
00:07 It's a statewide, worldwide problem.
00:10 But I think Apollo Bay has got more complexity because of the geographical isolation.
00:18 It's not a town where people can commute to, so that adds a complexity.
00:23 But what are we doing?
00:24 Well, Council have acknowledged this for years now and declared a housing crisis a good few
00:30 years ago.
00:31 There's been a number of smaller strategies that have been tried, things like writing
00:37 to ratepayers and asking them would they consider taking their houses off the short-term market
00:42 and putting it in for long-term rental.
00:45 We've changed some local laws to enable people to put caravans on their properties to enable
00:51 staff to stay in the peak periods.
00:53 But on a bigger level, we need to advocate to governments and take opportunities that
00:58 the governments are now rolling out to put a spotlight on the crisis in Apollo Bay and
01:04 the challenges that they're facing.
01:05 It's a multi-pronged approach and it's going to take some real effort on all levels of
01:11 government to really tackle the problem together.
01:14 [BLANK_AUDIO]