Transitional Housing Programmes

The North-West Aboriginal Housing Fund is a $200 million initiative that aims to create pathways towards social and economic independence and wellbeing for Aboriginal people in the Pilbara and Kimberley. This project has funded the design and construction of new Transitional houses in Kununurra, Halls Creek and Wyndham. By providing transitional housing opportunities, families are able to purchase the house they are renting which creates a solid reason and opportunity for the care and upkeep of their home.

The Transitional Housing Program can provide Indigenous families with a stable, affordable home, along with access to tailored support services to help with managing home, finances, health and work.

The Transitional housing program offers:

• secure affordable housing
• support and assistance with home and money management
• links to community support networks
• money mentors to help with home ownership and personal wealth.
  
  

In September 2012, the Department of Communities (formerly Housing Authority) launched the Transitional Housing Program in Kununurra with an initial forty transitional houses. Widely acclaimed, it won the 2013 Premier’s Award for the Improving Aboriginal Outcomes category. Building on this success, the program was expanded with another fifteen houses in Halls Creek and then into the West Kimberley; with forty houses in Broome and twenty in Derby.

More recently additional fifty transitional housing homes have been designed and are either completed or under construction, this includes thirty in Kununurra, fourteen in Halls Creek and six in Wyndham.

The Department of Communities has worked with the Binarri‑Binyja Yarrawoo (BBY) Aboriginal Corporation and other local stakeholders to decide housing location, density and design specifications in a co-design approach that ensures the transitional houses genuinely suit the needs of local Aboriginal people. Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation Building and Maintenance and Kullarri Building are constructing the fifty new homes.

The $200 million North-West Aboriginal Housing Fund is a major regional services reform initiative established to help improve the lives of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions.

Having access to affordable housing through the transitional housing program is critical for better health, education, social and economic outcomes.

Useful links and document:

For more information and program flyers:

https://www.housing.wa.gov.au/transitionalhousing

State Government media release:

https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2018/09/New-transitional-housing-nearing-completion-in-the-East-Kimberley.aspx