Former Politician Donates to Housing NFP
28 August 2014 at 11:59 am
A community activist concerned about Sydney’s housing affordability crisis has gifted a significant donation to community housing provider Bridge Housing.
The Not for Profit says former NSW Greens Member of Parliament, Sylvia Hale, has donated $500,000 to Bridge to deliver more affordable housing to people struggling to find a home in what has become of one the world’s most expensive cities.
Bridge Housing is a social and affordable housing provider with more than 1,600 housing tenancies across 18 local government areas in Sydney. The organisation provides homes for people from the street homeless through to key workers for the economy who cannot find affordable rental properties.
“This extraordinarily generous donation from Sylvia is an investment in affordable housing that will deliver returns again and again. Bridge’s model is to reinvest our capital and the rents we generate from tenants to build even more affordable housing,” Bridge CEO John Nicolades said.
The organisation says it will use the funds to help finance one of several new affordable and social housing developments it has in the planning stages to provide much needed affordable housing for 250 families across Sydney.
“Housing is absolutely essential for people’s quality of life. Unless you have secure, adequate housing that meets your needs, your education suffers, your health suffers and your job prospects suffer,” Sylvia Hale said.
“Housing affordability is at crisis point in this state and affordable housing is out of reach for many people. The failure of past and current governments to address the problem leaves me in despair.
“This is a personal contribution that I hope will highlight a situation that should shame any civilised community. Safe, secure, adequate housing is a human right, not an optional add-on.“
Hale is known as a social justice, community and environmental campaigner. She was a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2003 to 2010 and prior to that, a Councillor of Marrickville Council. Hale was also a founding partner of independent book publishers Hale & Iremonger.
It’s understood that the funds came from the sale of an Erskineville warehouse previously used for Hale’s publishing business.
