More than $100m goes missing from government disability housing program

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A federal government program designed to build thousands of specialised homes for people with a profound disability has become a feeding ground for property sharks and fraudsters, according to critics. It's also led to hundreds of empty disability houses across the country.

Transcript

00:00So we've knocked on the doors of at least half a dozen homes and it seems they're all empty.

00:07And that shows that at least here the SDA policy is failing.

00:11Behind each of these houses is an investor who's potentially overstretched to be able to purchase the home.

00:17And they may find themselves in all sorts of financial strife now, so they're not getting a rental income.

00:22And that's precisely the situation Tony Wilson has landed in.

00:32It's been going on for months and months trying to work out a way forward.

00:37Tony Wilson says a property broker convinced him to buy two specialist disability accommodation houses,

00:44one of them in Melbourne's outer suburbs.

00:47But no participants want to live there.

00:50Now he and his wife are struggling to pay the hefty mortgage.

00:58We're selling assets and whatever we can to try and make payments every month.

01:03We've both had breakdowns as a result of it.

01:06Yep.

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