Baw Baw Shire’s population is expected to grow by 50 percent - from about 62,000 to 93,500 - in the next 20 years.
Housing - from the open market to affordable, public and community - will be placed under immense stress as the shire attempts to accommodate more than 31,000 new residents.
First things first - what are public, community and affordable housing?
Social housing is an umbrella term that refers to a range of dwelling options for people on low-to-middle incomes or people struggling to pay rent. It includes:
Public housing, which is owned and managed by the Victorian government;
Community housing, which is operated by not-for-profit organisations, and;
Affordable housing, which is for low-to-moderate income households that don’t qualify for public or community housing but still struggle paying rent.
What happened: In the decade between 2013 and 2023, Warragul and Drouin were the fastest growing urban centres in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
As the housing crisis bites, the rapidly growing population is increasing the number of residents seeking social housing or rental assistance.
In March 2026, there were 387 residents in Drouin and 625 in Warragul on the Victorian social housing priority access waiting list, according to the Gippsland Homelessness Network (GHN).
A year prior there had been 356 residents on the list in Drouin and 587 in Warragul.
“These are people who are most in need, people who are escaping family violence, people with disabilities, health issues or people who are escaping disasters,” GHN Coordinator, Chris McNamara, told the Monitor.
Baw Baw Shire Mayor Kate Wilson told the Monitor the council is “seeing the impact of housing stress on our families. We're seeing it on homeless services and the community services that are there to support them. It's very important that people understand the need”.
Behind the curve
Professor of Public Policy and the Social Economy at RMIT, David Hayward, told the Monitor 2.7 percent of dwellings in Australia are considered social housing, whereas in European countries it’s usually between 15 and 25 percent.
There are about 86,000 social housing dwellings in Victoria.
“We’ve got a massive shortage and because we have far too little of it, we've put the heavy lifting onto the private rental sector,” he said.
Rather than the state giving subsidies via rental assistance, Hayward would like to see more state-owned public housing developments in towns like Warragul and Drouin.
“In Victoria there’s roughly 340,000 households on rent assistance living in insecure, expensive private rental accommodation where there's no security of tenure,” Hayward said.
If renters are spending over 30 percent of their pre-tax income on keeping a roof over their head they can seek state and federal rent assistance.
Navigating the maze
In Victoria, most social and affordable housing is built by not-for-profit providers that receive government subsidies to build dwellings and charge lower than market rents.
Hayward said there are problems with the way community housing is legislated in Victoria because usually the provider charges residents 20 percent below market rent.
“That doesn't mean it's affordable,” he said. “It needs to be based on a fraction of income because there’s no way of knowing whether it's affordable for a person's salary, or whether a rent increase next year will make it unaffordable.”
In government-owned public housing, the state charges residents no more than 25 percent of the household's pre-tax income.
“Public housing is going to be a much more affordable solution for people who are on very low incomes.”
McNamara agreed, saying social housing providers operate on tight margins, meaning “there's not a lot of tolerance for people who are not able to pay their rent”.
Under the state’s Affordable Housing Rental Scheme, rents in regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne are set at the lower of 30 percent of pre-tax household income or 74.99 percent of the market rent.
A single person earning up to $56,420 can apply for affordable housing. A couple, or two people, can earn up to $84,640 and a parent or couple with dependent children can earn up to $118,500.
A policy solution? Hayward wants the state government to broaden the income base for people to enter public housing.
“That will generate a return that covers all the costs of maintenance and a profit that enables the system to grow over time.”
The Monitor has sought comment from Housing Choices Australia, which is building a 45-unit social housing development in Drouin.