An artist's impression of a public housing estate planned for Ashburton. Credit:Places Victoria

Given this, the entire sector was shocked when the state Coalition and Greens combined to veto a social housing development in Ashburton, along with a threat to knock off nine similar projects. We are dumbfounded that our elected representatives could be so careless as to do this without talking to those of us working to get people housed.

This is especially worrisome given there is a parliamentary inquiry into the Public Housing Renewal Program that has not yet been completed. Not only have the opposition and Greens knocked off this development, no one from either group has put forward an achievable alternative that would deliver the much-needed housing that these programs would provide.

On a best-case scenario, if the proposal was approved today, the first houses would become available in 2020 and the last in 2025. If the reason behind the veto is that a better proposal can be developed when a new government is formed, then at best the first houses will come on line around 2023 or 2024 and the last about 2028. Those of us working in homelessness can't wait that long; we had to stop letting the perfect get in the way of the good a long time ago.

Is the Public Housing Renewal Program ideal? No. Does the sector think a 10 per cent uplift in public housing is sufficient? Absolutely not. We think that if the density levels were increased and some additional funding was provided we could lift the level of social housing to 30 per cent or more from these projects. We would hope the opposition and Greens would support such sensible changes.