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  1. Housing.vic.gov.au
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Resident surveys

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We’re committed to listening to our residents. Understanding the lived experience of residents helps us improve our housing services and better meet the needs of people living in public housing.

We’ll regularly survey people living in public housing to seek their views about their home, our housing services, and feelings of health, safety, diversity and community connection.

The next Victorian Public Housing Resident Survey is starting in March 2022. You can find more details about the upcoming survey in our 2022 Victorian Public Housing Resident Survey news article.

Victorian Public Housing Resident Survey 2020

2020 survey results are now available

In late 2020, Homes Victoria surveyed 3,500 residents living in public housing across Victoria. This was the largest public housing jurisdictional survey in the world. Residents were asked their views on their home, our housing services, and feelings of health, safety, diversity and community connection. 
 
The survey indicates that about two thirds of residents are happy with the maintenance of their home and the services provided by their housing office. We are committed to acting on residents' feedback, including the need to improve property maintenance. 

As part of a $498 million state-wide building works package, we’re delivering improvements across public housing estates, including upgrades and renovations such as new bathrooms and kitchens, and thermal comfort of properties. This package, and better upgrade planning, will reduce the need for renters to make maintenance requests, and we’re exploring ways to improve the timeliness and process for renters’ maintenance issues to be resolved.

The $112 million Social Housing Energy Efficiency program will also help reduce the cost of power bills for residents and make homes more comfortable year-round. This was raised as a concern by residents in the survey. 

Understanding the lived experience of residents is important to Homes Victoria, so we can deliver better services into the future. We’ve heard that safety and security in public housing needs improvement and we’ll continue to work hard to keep residents safe. We will work closely with local communities to better understand their safety needs and what the most important issues  are in order to improve feelings of personal and neighbourhood safety.

Homes Victoria is committed to giving residents a voice and involving residents in decision-making processes that affect their housing – conducting an annual resident survey and sharing its findings is the first step in understanding residents’ experiences and giving them more of a say in decisions about their housing. The Paving the Way Forward program announced in December 2020 works with residents in Flemington and North Melbourne to improve health and safety outcomes and increase local employment and training opportunities.

Homes Victoria will continue to examine and respond to the issues raised in the resident survey, and ensure the survey findings will continue to be used to plan better services. We will work across government to ensure the needs of residents are met, and to improve the quality of life, and health and wellbeing among public housing residents.

Survey results

The survey results have been compiled into a full report and summary poster:

Summary poster

Got a question about the survey results? Email shr@homes.vic.gov.au.

Victorian Public Housing Resident Survey 2019

The results of the 2019 survey across fifteen sites throughout Victoria are now available.

The views, opinions and perceptions of people living in public housing is key to the successful transformation of the department’s housing business, ultimately improving the department’s response to the diverse needs of residents. 

Find out more about the large public housing survey in Victoria conducted October through December 2019 in our summary poster and summary of results available for download.