My sisters and I were raised by my mother on her own with no child support and in a time when there was nowhere near the welfare support there is today. As a result of our financial position we were left with no other choice than to live in a housing commission rental property for a few years in a suburb that had a reputation as being one of the if not the roughest area in Perth at the time.
So I have more than adequate life experience to develop an informed opinion as to the need for low cost housing and the errors made in the past by governments in providing this housing.
Yes building whole suburbs and often suburbs right next to each other of government housing in the 60s and 70s created an ample supply of low cost housing, but it also created massive social problems. A lesson that governments (at least here in WA) appear to have learnt from and the housing they do supply is spread accross various parts of the metro area.
But just as a social problem was created from the high concentration of governemtn housing in particular areas, similar social problems now are being created by the lack of affordable housing.
