Supported and Affordable Rental Housing on the “Block”
Woden Valley Uniting Church (WVUC) holds the lease on the “Block”, the land opposite the Curtin Shops on the corner of Theodore and Carruthers Streets. It has been our goal for many years for this land to be used for supported housing and affordable rental housing. In 2025 we saw great progress made in achieving this goal.
In October 2025 Wesley Mission, a congregation and social services agency within the Uniting Church, obtained development approval for its application to build 83 affordable rental and 15 supported housing units on the block. In developing its plans for the site Wesley has worked in collaboration with WVUC and MyHome in Canberra, a local community organisation which aims to provide supported housing for people with enduring mental illness. Wesley has been successful in obtaining funding for the project from both the Commonwealth and ACT governments, without which support the project would not be financially viable. We expect work on the block to commence in mid-2026 with project completion scheduled for early 2028.
Why are we doing this?
Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis.
Housing prices have grown much faster than incomes over the past few decades. Saving for a home deposit and managing a mortgage have become harder and, for more and more people, out of reach. Consequently, a higher proportion of the population rents. Yet rents too have risen faster than incomes. The situation has been made worse, especially for people on low incomes, by the fact that the amount of public and other social housing has not kept up with population growth and the proportion of households living in social housing has fallen to historical lows. In the ACT that proportion fell from 8.6% in 2008 to 6.5% in 2024 and there are currently over 3000 on the ACT public housing waiting list.
Housing costs push many families into poverty. Without secure and decent housing it is harder to find and keep a job, stay in school, care for yourself and others, participate in community life and make plans for the future. In short, access to affordable, secure, decent housing is critical for human flourishing. Better housing outcomes should then be a national priority. Governments have a key role to play. But the challenge is so large that other sectors too need to play their part. That is why WVUC is contributing its land to the project. And once the building project is completed we will continue to work in partnership with Wesley and MyHome. We believe that supporting and affording opportunities to people in need is fundamental to the Christian gospel and should be core business for a church. It has been central to the congregation’s mission plan for many years.
A feature of the project is a community space on the ground floor of the MyHome building - the project comprises three buildings, the other 2 being for affordable rental. The community space will include meeting rooms, a kitchen and other facilities. It will be available for use by Wesley Mission and WVUC and by residents of the complex, but it is also our intention to make it available for use by community groups.
Background on the project
In 2013, our Church agreed that MyHome in Canberra, could use part of the block to build supported housing for people with enduring mental illness, who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or living in unsatisfactory housing. We have continued our support for MyHome ever since, both in the renewed offer of use of land and through the efforts of individual church members in the work of MyHome.
We were affirmed in our support of MyHome by the inclusion of the project in both the 2016 and 2020 ACT Parliamentary Agreements, under which Labor and the Greens committed to (in the words of the 2020 Agreement) “work with the land-owners and community organisations to deliver the MyHome proposal in Curtin.”
Beginning in 2017 our church explored options for the development of affordable rental housing on the remainder of the Block. In 2022 Wesley Mission approached us about their developing affordable rental housing on the Block. It quickly became obvious that it made sense for Wesley to develop affordable rental and supported housing jointly and this idea was attractive both to MyHome and the ACT Government. Progress on both elements accelerated from that time.
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