More than 600 Maitland people have been living in public housing for more than 10 years.
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This constitutes a third of the people living in public housing in Maitland.
And the state government wants them to move into private accommodation.
But Labor candidate for Maitland Jenny Aitchison has called for the situation of each person in public housing to be assessed, instead of relying on statistics.
Maitland Neighbourhood Centre manager Naomi Rees said the reason for people being in public housing for such a long time should be carefully examined.
In figures released to the Mercury , the Department of Family and Community Services revealed there were 720 people on the public housing waiting list in Maitland.
Of the 617 tenants who have lived in public housing for more than 10 years, 582 are single.
“The government would like to see a greater number of public housing tenants using social housing to get back on their feet and get paid employment, rather than depending on social housing for the rest of their lives if they don’t need to do so,” a department official said.
“Most public housing dwellings in Maitland are relatively old and more than 700 were homes with three bedrooms.”
Ms Rees said there was a high number – five a week on average – of homeless people who came to the centre for help each week.
“To anyone in the community, a policy of encouraging people to get off public housing might sound good,” Ms Rees said.
“But we need to look at the reasons why people are in public housing for such a long time.
“We must look at the cirucumstances of each person and take those into account.”
Ms Aitchison said the government’s hopes to move people out of public housing might be good in theory, but people’s situations should be carefully assessed.
“The government must respond on people’s actual circumstances,” she said.
“We definitely want people to move out of public housing – that would be great.
“But we are also talking about older people, widows and widowers, families and people with disabilities who have been in public housing for some time.
“The government needs to be very careful here or we could have a very harsh situation.”
