Housing bureaucracy creating an 'illusion of concern'

Giving evidence at the Yoorrook Justice Commission, state Housing Minister Harriet Shing apologised for the dispossession of land and ongoing disadvantage faced by Aboriginal communities.

"We created Aboriginal homelessness and then we turned away from it, and for too long, we refused to even acknowledge that its existence and impact was our doing," Ms Shing told the commission on Monday.

"For that, I am sorry."

Indigenous Australians make up about three per cent of the population but account for one in five people facing homelessness nationally, according to census data.

The inquiry has heard that 17 per cent of Aboriginal Victorians are seeking homelessness support and that figure is growing by 10 per cent a year.

Pushed to explain what her government was doing to improve ongoing disadvantage, Ms Shing pointed to the Victorian Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum and Aboriginal Housing Victoria and noted she continued to advocate for more funding from the federal government.

"I'm not giving any impression that the system is perfect, but there is a lot happening," Ms Shing said.

Commissioner Maggie Walter replied that housing forums had been operating for 30-plus years without appreciable change.

"Being told that the forum is meeting does not give myself ... any comfort that that is actually leading to change," Professor Walter said.

"It just seems like more bureaucracy to give the illusion of concern."

State and national, legislative, strategic and policy settings had underpinned adverse housing outcomes for First Peoples, Ms Shing said.

"Systems have been designed with a measure of total control at their heart, and that that has included dispossession and ... piecemeal attempts to demonstrate progress," she added.

In the private rental market, Aboriginal people faced barriers such as racism and statistically lower incomes.

Ms Shing said the Aboriginal private rental assistance program provided up to $7000 for about 1000 families, but commissioner Anthony North questioned the adequacy of the grant.

"(It's) really pitiful, isn't it?" he asked.

"By providing, if you like, inadequate income support, you're setting up a system to fail, aren't you?"

The minister denied any government intention in the program's perceived shortcomings.

"I don't think we're setting it up to fail," Ms Shing said.

"(But) I think it does fail."

The work to undo decades and generations of disadvantage was slow and difficult, the minister told the commission.

"First Peoples deserved so much better and so much more than the contempt shown by successive governments," Ms Shing said.

"We are working so hard in the spirit of self-determination to transfer decisions to create cultural safety to deliver funding."

Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter thanked the minister for her evidence but said change wasn't happening quickly enough.

"People are dying on the streets, and our people are over-represented," Prof Hunter said.

"It's just not enough."

Australian Associated Press