A place to call home for South Melbourne community housing group

An organisation that has helped thousands of people find housing has settled into its own new home in South Melbourne, just in time for National Homelessness Week in August.

After more than 30 years operating from its previous Dorcas St building, South Port Community Housing Group (SPCHG) has signed a 10-year lease at 98 Bank St in South Melbourne.

SPCHG works with single adults and young people facing homelessness or social exclusion to find long-term, affordable rental properties.

Its CEO Charlie Beckley estimates the organisation has helped find homes for thousands of people over its 42 years of operation.

Mr Beckley told Southbank News more public housing investment was needed across Melbourne’s inner south as tough rental markets left vulnerable communities struggling more than ever.

“City of Port Phillip currently has six to seven per cent of its dwellings as social housing,” Mr Beckley said. “We’d love to see that at around 10 per cent.”

Mr Beckley said SPCHG had been lucky to find a new location on Bank St in South Melbourne without disrupting services for their tenants.

“The key concern for me was creating an environment where our residents feel welcome to come in and see us at our office and get their issues sorted out,” he said.

“We pride ourselves on being embedded in the community.”

SPCHG operates primarily out of the Port Phillip council area but manages a portfolio of 50 properties stretching from Balaclava to East Malvern, and north to Prahran and South Yarra.

“Most of them are ex-boarding houses, beautiful properties with a high heritage value we’ve leased from the state government over 40 years,” Mr Beckley said.

“We’ve maintained them and kept people housed from very vulnerable cohorts.”

SPCHG accepts priority needs tenants from the Victorian Housing Registrar, which currently has a wait list of more than 60,000 single people – not counting families.

Mr Beckley said that people often spent years waiting for social housing to become available and were eager to put down roots once they were offered a home.

“Some of our tenants have been with us for over 30 years,” he said.

We tend to create a sense of community. We have barbecues and events and really make sure once people are with us, they feel like they can tap into and reconnect with civic life.

“Melbourne’s inner south has so much to offer, it’s a fantastic thing.”

Anglicare’s 2025 rental affordability snapshot found 0.8 per cent of Victorian rental properties were affordable for a single person living on social welfare.

Domain’s June quarter rent report saw Melbourne’s rental vacancy rate drop to 1.3 per cent.

“Gentrification has seen a lot of housing for singles disappear,” Mr Beckley said. “We’re playing catch-up.”

“There’s been a lot of investment from the state government, which is welcome, but it’s been mostly across the outer suburbs.”

Around 15 per cent of people on the VHR waiting list nominate the Port Phillip area as a desired location to live.

“We think it makes sense to build more public housing close to services, close to the city,” Mr Beckley said.

“We’ve got ambitions for places like Fishermans Bend – we’d love to work with developers and other interested parties to create more social housing.”

National Homelessness Week is marked from Monday, August 4 to Sunday, August 10 and will see community housing agencies work to raise awareness of the impact of homelessness and its future solutions.

“Over the last few years, agencies have folded 6000 origami houses to represent the number of houses we’d like to have built each year, and it becomes a really powerful visual display on the steps of Victorian Parliament,” Mr Beckley said.

For more information about SPCHG: spchg.org.au.

And for more on National Homelessness week and the Houses at Parliament display visit vhn.org.au •