00:02Retiree Linda Porter wants to play her part in alleviating homelessness.
00:07She's offering to host a tiny home in her backyard.
00:11We're in a position now we can help people, so to me it's a no-brainer.
00:16The Mossvale resident is the first landowner to partner with the homeless charity Lydia's Legacy.
00:22Can you imagine if you had all these regional areas where you could suddenly put tiny homes on properties?
00:27That would be amazing.
00:28The tiny homes would be offered to homeless people on the social housing waiting list for periods of up to
00:35five years.
00:36In no way is this a total solution for the housing crisis, but it's a really innovative solution that provides
00:43some short, medium term accommodation options.
00:46The Southern Highlands is one of the state's wealthiest areas, but there are around 80 people sleeping rough every night.
00:53It's not like the streets of Sydney City where you're seeing people sleeping in doorways.
00:58We don't have that here. We've got people that are living in the bush.
01:02We've got people living in cars. We've got people couch surfing.
01:04The charity wants to build more tiny homes, but says planning rules stand in the way.
01:10If the state government were to add homelessness as a reason to allow people to be permanently in a tiny
01:18home, not just for escaping disaster, then that would fix the problem for us.
01:24A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry recently recommended a change in the planning laws to that effect, which the government
01:31accepted but is yet to implement.
01:33There has to be a collective vision and a shared responsibility around removing the roadblocks wherever possible.
01:41Linda Porter is happy to share her backyard with someone who needs a home.
01:45You hope that someone would do that for you if you were in that position.
01:49A small solution to a nationwide crisis.
01:52like this.
01:52...
01:54A man of the brave friends
