00:00To many West Australians, Margaret River is a tourist destination.
00:08Local cleaner Serena Liotta knows this all too well.
00:12Cottages are empty for 10 days and I sit there and I think, oh my god, I would love it if
00:17I could just stay here for 10 days.
00:21The mother of two has been applying and getting rejected for rentals for almost two years.
00:27Right now she's staying at a friend's share house with her son, who was diagnosed with
00:31brain cancer around the same time the house they were renting was put up for sale.
00:36Recently, she's had to make the tough decision to send her younger daughter to stay with
00:40her dad until she can find a stable home for all three of them.
00:44I feel like a broken family.
00:48It feels like we're not whole when we're not together.
00:53In the state's far north, residents in remote Aboriginal communities are facing their own
00:58housing issues.
01:00Insects come through from the outside and the centipedes are a good size and they're venomous.
01:08Social housing makes up most homes in Djarinjan, but locals say the government is failing to
01:13maintain them.
01:14I had to wait seven years until they put a new plumbing system in the house and that's
01:21a long time to wait.
01:23You know, living with water leaks and stuff.
01:25The government said it had announced a $350 million fund in 2023 to refurbish housing
01:32in remote communities.
01:34With an election just three weeks away, housing was top of the agenda at a forum for candidates
01:39in Warren Blackwood, one of the most marginal seats in WA.
01:43We have vacancies through our education, health, law enforcement, as well as at a local government
01:49issue level that we can't house people to fill the positions that we have.
01:54Ms Bugie says she wants to see more state funding to unlock empty government land.
01:59It is very frustrating knowing that local government is the closest level of government
02:04to the community.
02:06We can see what we need to do and we can see a very simple fix.
02:09We just need that conversation to start.
02:12There's a lot of promises, always promises at election time.
02:16I look at people who are proactive, who are making changes prior to election.
02:20Are you seeing anyone who fits that bill?
02:25Not quite.
02:27Both major parties have committed hundreds of millions of dollars towards solving the
02:32housing crisis.
02:33But who gets elected and whether they actually follow through on their promises feels somewhat
02:38irrelevant to Ms Leotta and many other regional West Australians who need to find a house
02:44today.
02:46For more UN videos visit www.un.org
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