Research for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute proposes a path forward to reduce, and even eliminate, homelessness in Australia.
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Articles on Housing policy
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The shortfall of social housing has built up over decades. Even after the building program is complete, the gap between housing supply and the numbers on waiting lists will still be huge.
In Australia, we do housing and we do health, but they sit in different portfolios of government and the policy dots aren’t joined often enough.
Current housing stimulus measures aim to boost buyer demand and are too small to sustain a recovery. A second round of stimulus is likely to be needed, and it should go into social housing supply.
Australia found shelter for more than 33,000 rough sleepers and other homeless people during the pandemic, but a coming surge in homelessness demands a comprehensive national housing strategy.
The impacts of the pandemic on jobs and incomes have been so widespread and severe that low-income households can afford very few properties despite rents falling in some parts of our capital cities.
When the moratorium on evictions ends, even more Australians will face housing insecurity and homelessness. Beyond the moral and health cases, there’s a powerful financial reason to end homelessness.
The fallout from COVID-19 for housing and homelessness just adds to the urgency of fixing the long-standing ills of the housing market. The well-being of Australia’s economy and people depends on it.
Accommodation providers are reporting huge increases in the numbers of people coming to them for help. They’d love to be able to use newly vacant rental housing, but it’s not a lasting solution.
Ghettos of crime, drugs and vice? Full of people bludging off the state? That’s typical of the unfair stigma attached to public housing, and it distracts us from more fundamental issues.
High rents and insecurity are constant sources of financial and emotional stress for low-income women. They describe what it’s like struggling to survive and being one step away from being homeless.
Older women have been the fastest-growing group of homeless people in recent years. New research shows about 240,000 women aged 55 or older and another 165,000 women aged 45-54 are at risk.
Much of our public housing stock is ageing and substandard. But we can learn from outstanding examples of retrofit projects that have transformed existing blocks into high-quality housing.
Public housing renewal often aims for a 70:30 private-public mix of dwellings. Modelling shows applying this mix to Waterloo housing estate would cut the suburb’s social housing share from 30% to 17%.
The public housing hard lockdown is the product of a punitive public housing system whose residents have been neglected for decades.
Most local councils, developers and nonprofit providers want mandatory affordable housing requirements applied to all development. The current system of voluntary negotiations just isn’t working well.
You’d think falling housing prices might help people on low incomes, but history shows downturns often increase inequality. And many buyers who took out big loans during the housing boom are at risk.
Of 2,646 hectares of public land being prepared for sale in Victoria, 24 sites are suitable for building high-quality public housing in places of high need. Why isn’t the land being used for this?
The pandemic has brought to a head deep-rooted problems with how housing is provided in Australia. Fortunately, the solutions can play a central role in the national recovery process.
Construction employs one in ten Australians, with a broad range of skills, using mostly locally made materials. Building social housing would meet urgent social needs as well as creating jobs.
Top contributors
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Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University
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Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney
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Professor, City Futures Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW Sydney
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Hallmark Research Initiative for Affordable Housing, The University of Melbourne
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Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney
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Professor of Housing Research, University of Adelaide
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Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
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Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
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Professor of Housing & Social Policy, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology
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Senior Lecturer in Urbanism, University of Sydney
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Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor, Geography and Urban Studies, Western Sydney University
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Head of Urbanism and Associate Professor of Urban Studies, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney
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Adjunct Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University
