The Victorian housing minister has told the Yoorrook Justice Commission that the scale of the help offered by the government has been inadequate to tackle the significant issue of housing and homelessness for Indigenous people.

Housing Minister Harriet Shing was grilled about an apparent lack of progress in improving housing outcomes for Indigenous Victorians.

Apologising for the dispossession of land, and the ongoing disadvantage faced by Indigenous people in Victoria, Ms Shing said the government created Aboriginal homelessness, "and then we turned away from it".

"And for too long, we refused to even acknowledge that its existence and impact was our doing…for that, I am sorry," she said.

"The First Nations communities, families and people who ache for homes they have lost or have had taken, long for homes they have never had or who live in substandard homes when they are available. I apologise."

The hearing has previously heard more than 1800 Aboriginal children in Victoria under the age of nine accessed specialist homeless services in the last financial year, while the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) said they were unaware of how long 'non-priority' applicants on the housing list would have to wait — not ruling out a timeframe of over 20 years.

For 'priority' applications, the Minister told the hearings: "On average, households housed via the priority access or priority transfer category on the Victorian Housing Register waited an average of 18.1 months for housing, against a target of 10.5 months in 2022-23."

"This is clearly unacceptable," she said.

The commission was previously told about one-in-five Aboriginal Victorians were homeless, compared to one in 50 for the general population, with the number growing 10 per cent annually.

Counsel assisting, Tim Goodwin, asked the Minister: "If the numbers of Aboriginal Victorians attempting to access specialist homelessness services was replicated in the general population that would translate to over 1 million Victorians…That would be a humanitarian crisis, wouldn't it?'

"Absolutely," Ms Shing replied.

Asked then why the same attention is not being paid to Aboriginal people in the crisis, the minister noted: "I think that there is a persistent ignorance...[and an] all too often wilful ignorance that is based in racism."

"It is based in prejudice. It is based in…an inability to accept responsibility."

The Hon. Harriet Shing, Minister for Housing acknowledges that Government has a lot of work to do to "address the centuries of systematic dispossession and to provide the right housing that is needed now and into the future".#Housing #HarrietShingMP #Dispossession #SpringSt pic.twitter.com/ww4nxX7DQC

— Yoorrook Justice Commission (@yoorrookjc) June 24, 2024

Of the 11,000 applicants for housing support that have cited domestic violence concerns as part of their applications, more than 5,000 are First Nations people, the minister told the commission.

Pressed to explain her government's role in helping alleviate disadvantage and poverty, Ms Shing highlighted Aboriginal Housing Victoria and the Victorian Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum, arguing she had consistently advocated for further funding from the Commonwealth.

When she explained that despite it not being "perfect…there is a lot happening," Commissioner Maggie Walter noted various housing forums had been operating for at least 30 years.

"Being told that the forum is meeting does not give ... any comfort that that is actually leading to change," Professor Walter said, further noting it seemed more like "bureaucracy to give the illusion of concern".

The minister said all systems - including state and federal, strategic and policy, had only helped to exacerbate Indigenous disadvantage and negative housing outcomes.

"Systems have been designed with a measure of total control at their heart, and that that has included dispossession," Ms Shing said.

"I don't underestimate for a moment the indignity and the shame and the lived experience of homelessness or of vulnerability for First Peoples and that dispossession and dislocation from Country.

"First Peoples' deserved so much better, and so much more than the contempt shown by successive governments."

She was pressed by Commissioner Anthony North KC after she highlighted the Aboriginal private rental assistance program, which provides up to $7,000 for close to 1,000 families, with the commissioner labelling the stipend "pitiful".

"By providing, if you like, inadequate income support, you're setting up a system to fail, aren't you?" Commissioner North asked.

"I don't think we're setting it up to fail, [But] I think it does fail."

The hearings continue.