00:02With specialist staff and a community of peers close at hand...
00:06How are you going today?
00:07I'm good.
00:07...supported housing has given Darren Benson a sense of stability
00:11through the ups and downs of severe anxiety, nerve pain and bouts of psychosis.
00:16If I wasn't here, I really don't know where I would be.
00:20I'd be honest, I don't really want to quite think about it
00:22because I don't think I'd be in a good place if I wasn't for here.
00:25But too often, Victorians with severe mental illness fall through a critical gap
00:31in suitable long-term housing,
00:33finding themselves on a pipeline between hospitalisation and homelessness.
00:37The state's 2021 Mental Health Royal Commission prompted a raft of promises
00:42to fix the chronically underfunded sector.
00:44That shame should be shouldered by a generation of policymakers.
00:49Including $40 million to deliver 2,000 big housing-build homes
00:54as supported mental health housing.
00:56But five years after it was budgeted, not a cent has been spent.
01:00That funding's no longer available, so I don't think that's a promise kept.
01:05Homes are still being built and that's prompted alarm that tenancies could be jeopardised
01:10if vulnerable Victorians move in without the necessary supports.
01:14Without some ongoing support, the investment in the house tends to be wasted.
01:21It's an incredibly small investment for a great upfront saving.
01:25The state government did not deny that its funding pledge has now been scrapped.
01:29Instead, it said it was taking a phased approach to delivering the support through other means.
01:35An initial deadline to meet the Royal Commission's housing recommendation passed more than a year ago.
01:41It's unclear when the inquiry's recommendation of 2,000 supported homes will be met.
01:46With the
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