What is a rooming house?
There is often confusion about the nature of rooming house accommodation. Rooming houses (sometimes referred to also as boarding houses) generally provide housing for single people who (sometimes through disadvantage) may find it difficult to access other private rental housing or who prefer to live in a rooming house environment for social contact.
Rooming house accommodation traditionally involves residents renting bedrooms (rather than self-contained flats/units) and the use of shared common facilities such as bathrooms, lounges, kitchens, dining areas and laundries. Increasingly rooming houses include partially or fully self-contained bed sitters/studio units. Some may offer one bedroom units (particularly in the newer community managed properties). Rooming houses can be either apartment houses (without the provision of meals) and boarding houses (which provide at least one meal to tenants). Boarding houses are now very rare.
Rooming houses can be either privately owned and managed (also called 'Private Hotels') or publicly owned community housing managed by a community organisation.
While both can target low-income, disadvantaged and marginalised tenants, private rooming houses tend to be run on a for-profit basis as a business, often with on site managers and have a mix of short-term tenancies (including people coming off the street and sometimes some backpackers) and long-term tenancies. Their rents are usually based on market rates.
Community-based (public) rooming houses operate on a not-for-profit basis, generally focus on longer-term housing, are more careful with tenant selection and do not use on site managers. The community organisations operating in Port Phillip are Southport Community Housing Group, St Kilda Community Housing Ltd, Port Phillip Housing Association Ltd. and Community Housing Ltd.  Port Phillip Housing Strategy 2007-17
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Rooming houses in Port Phillip
The City of Port Phillip has a large but rapidly decreasing number of rooming houses.
In July 2006, Port Phillip had 67 rooming houses with 1,209 beds, comprising 23 private rooming houses (417 rooms) and 44 public/community rooming houses (792 rooms). A majority of these rooming houses (36) are located in St Kilda, with 12 located in South Melbourne, three located in Port Melbourne, one in Melbourne and three in Elwood.
Port Phillip's private rooming houses are steadily closing due to the impact of gentrification. As a result, the City of Port Phillip supports the maintenance of private rooming houses and the provision of publicly owned-community managed rooming houses. This support is through strategies such as:
- Encouraging the retention of existing private rooming houses
- Encouraging the provision of new, private rooming houses
- Facilitating new community managed rooming houses
- Providing new publicly owned-community managed rooming houses under the City of Port Phillip Community Housing Program. Port Phillip Housing Strategy 2007-17
Contact details for Community Rooming Houses in Port Phillip
Port Phillip Housing Association Ltd Port Phillip Housing Association Ltd
Suite 6/22-28 Fitzroy Street St Kilda
Tel: 9534 5837
St. Kilda Community Housing Ltd
2 Fitzroy Street St Kilda
Tel: 9534 1809
Southport Community Housing Group
259 Dorcas Street Sth Melbourne
Tel: 9696 1128
Community Housing Ltd
9 Prospect Street, Box Hill
Tel: 9856 0050
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The Port Phillip Housing Program
Through replacing private rooming houses with permanent, affordable, well designed and community managed rooming houses, the loss rate of total rooming houses is being slowed. The Port Phillip Housing Association has eight community managed rooming houses under its community housing program. These are:
- Broxted (East St Kilda)
- Ravelston (Elwood)
- Excelsior Hall (Port Melbourne)
- the former St Kilda fire station (Elwood)
- John Cribbes House (Balaclava)
- The Regal (St Kilda)
- Chelmsford, (St Kilda)
- Woodstock (Balaclava)
In 2005 Port Phillip Housing Association became a registered Affordable Housing Association and is now developing 3 new community housing projects, one of which is the Pyrmont rooming house in St Kilda.
Overview and Select Project Summaries
In addition Southport Community Housing Group manage 14 Rooming Houses across Port and South Melbourne, and St Kilda Community Housing Ltd manage 20 rooming houses in St Kilda.
One of the rooming houses managed by St Kilda Community Housing Ltd, Avon Court at 55 Alma Road St Kilda is being upgraded from mid 2006 so has closed for these works to be carried out. According to the Office of Housing, Avon court was built in the nineteenth century and has served as an Office of Housing rooming house since 1982.
A $1 million renovation will be jointly funded by the state government and the St Kilda Community Housing Ltd. Work is expected to be complete by mid 2007.
Rooming House Plus - (Former Batman Hotel) - 69 Queens Road, Melbourne
The former John Batman Hotel on the corner of Lorne St and Queens Rd has been refurbished by the Department of Human Services as a Rooming House Plus Project as a 64 self contained unit rooming house. It is tenancy managed by Community Housing Ltd. (another registered Victorian Affordable Housing Association) and incorporates a range of intensive support (29 units) and low level support (35 units) that is provided by Sacred Heart Mission.
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Other information
Use eServices to ask us a question, request information or give us feedback online about rooming houses. If you prefer phone ASSIST on (03) 9209 6777 or TTy (03) 9209 6713 and ask for the housing development officer.
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