And there were 100 properties vacant for more than 100 days each according to data released by ACT Housing under Freedom of Information Laws.

As the ACT Housing waiting list grew longer than in the two years before hundreds of properties remained empty in preparation for upgrade or maintenance work.

About 334 were un-tenanted for more than 30 days for significant upgrades and 220 more were empty for routine maintenance.

Fire damage was the reason 22 more properties remained vacant for 44 to 276 days.

ACT Housing figures show eight properties were empty as part of long-term vacancies and nine had been referred to the management team.

The data, from the 2013-14 financial year, indicates the general reasons that public housing properties remained vacant for longer than the ACT government’s re-housing target of 28 days.

The waiting list for public, community and affordable housing in the ACT stands at 2300.

That breaks down to 166 applications for priority housing, 1438 for high-needs housing and 696 for standard housing.

According to ACT Housing figures the average waiting time for standard housing is more than two years and about 130 days for priority housing.

There are also 96 applicants on the priority transfer list, 586 on the high-needs transfer and 329 on the standard transfer lists.

Those on the high-needs transfer list can wait almost three years, while a priority transfer is completed in just under a year on average.

Community Services Directorate annual reports going back to 2001/2 show the average number of applicants on the housing waiting list is about 2703.

The waiting list peaked in 2004-5 at slightly above 4000 and was at 1500 in 2010-11, 1750 in 2011-12 and 2250 in 2012-13.

A constant theme in each year’s report is the consistent increase in demand for public housing.

“Much of the pressure on the public housing system is as a direct consequence of longer-term issues associated with private rental affordability,” the 2012-13 annual report says.

ACT Housing and Community Services executive director David Collett said that in the past financial year there were about 130 properties vacant on an average day which represented only about 1 per cent of total public housing stock.

“That compares very favourably with the generally accepted industry standard in the residential investment market of 2 per cent to 5 per cent,” he said.

“There’s still room for improvement, we’re looking at the process to see whether we can’t get more properties turned around in our target of 28 days.”

He said the list of data represented a typical year of vacancies including programmed maintenance twhen a tenant moved out.

Mr Collett said it was government policy to complete bigger maintenance work when a tenant moved out so it was upgraded at once.

He said properties could also remain vacant for longer than 30 days were when they were being held for people transferring from hospital or the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

Investigations into fires or accidental damage or development applications lodged when a property was to be demolished also took additional time.

The ACT government’s asset management strategy 2012-2017 for public housing notes that the ACT’s stock is the oldest public housing portfolio in Australia with the average age of just over 29 years.

Most public housing was built by the Commonwealth to accommodate large numbers of public servants transferred when departments were being established in the ACT.

The strategy says much of it was built between the 1950s and the 1980s and has “consequent impacts on repairs and maintenance requirements”.

Tuggeranong resident Kayla Kayaba is no stranger to the struggle of waiting for a home.

The mother of two lives in a small public housing property and has been on the priority transfer list for two years.

Ms Kayaba suffers from medical conditions, including methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus - which is a drug resistant strain of golden staph - and Darier's disease, a rare genetic skin condition.

Doctors have recommended that she not share a bedroom or bathroom with her children, aged 10 and two, due to the possibility of transferring the aureus condition.

As soon as she became pregnant with her now two-year old son she applied to move to a larger home but has been waiting for two years.

Mother Sonia Jones, who is visiting from Western Australia to help her daughter, says it is a horrible situation for the family.