A project aimed at matching homeowners with low-income tenants who need a room has received a $220,000 boost from the ACT government.
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Disability support service, Community Connections was given the grant to set up a project called Homeshare ACT. Executive director Dougie Herd said the service will aim to create about 50 partnerships over the next 18 months.
Mr Herd said examples of people who would open their house could be those with a disability or an elderly person looking for extra support.
"We're targeting people with a disability, older Canberrans and people who live at home and might have a bit of space," he said.
"We'd offer their spare bedroom to somebody who is looking for a house, it could be a young person for example.
"What often happens is there is reduced or no rent for the person who is living in the house. They may agree to give 20 hours of assistance, they wouldn't do any support or medical work but they would be there, stay overnight.
"It delivers a companion and they might help out around the house."
Part of the grant will go towards employing a project officer to match prospective companions, undertake police checks and be there if anything goes wrong, Mr Herd said.
Community Connections was one of six organisations to share in $645,000 from the ACT government as part of its Affordable Housing Innovation Fund. Minster for Housing and Suburban Development Yvette Berry announced the recipients on Thursday.
Build-to-rent organisation, BUILD.RENT, received a $125,000 grant. The organisation, set up by directors Nathan and Elisabeth Judd and Hannah Gill will build "innovative" affordable rental projects across Canberra. The team hopes to deliver 10 projects over 10 years.
"We're in the early days so we're an architect, property manager and planner/ lawyer," said Mr Judd.
"We're excited this [grant] will help us do a lot of the early consulting work to inform how we will put this together."
Catholic Care, which has recently partnered with the ACT government on a homelessness program, received $50,000 to engage consultants to explore the feasibility of building affordable and social housing on church land.
Catholic Care Canberra and Goulburn executive director Anne Kirwan said the organisation has partnered with Colliers International to work through zoning and legislative requirements, and Cox Architecture to develop a design.
Other recipients include the Summer Foundation, Rights and Inclusion Australia and YWCA.
The ACT government committed $1 million to the innovation fund at the 2017 ACT Housing and Homelessness Summit.
Over two stages of funding nine projects received $925,000. A government spokeswoman said at this stage no further commitment has been made for a third stage.
"We will monitor and evaluate the outcomes of the first two stages before making future decisions on funding," she said.