New South Wales is the state that has suffered the biggest fall in available public housing stock since 2009. This has led to protests.
Teresa Parker/AAP
Although the federal-state agreement does it inadequately and lacks transparency, an enduring program of federal funding for operational expenses is essential to sustain the social housing system.
Any attempt to improve security for tenants should not deprive them, or their landlords, of the flexibility that many also want.
David Crosling/AAP
Any attempt to improve security for tenants should not deprive them, or their landlords, of the flexibility that many also want. The key problem is landlords’ ability to give notice without a reason.
The homeless people evicted from Flinders Street in Melbourne’s CBD are only the tip of the iceberg of the housing crisis in Victoria.
Joe Castro/AAP
Weak state policies, which lack clear targets and mechanisms for providing more and better affordable housing, are part of the problem. Victoria still doesn’t have an affordable housing strategy.
To understand how households cope, we may need to look beneath broad patterns of affordability to the interplay of housing costs with other problems.
IDuke/Wikimedia Commons
Housing affordability is often not the only problem households face. More often the compounding effects of multiple problems leave people unable to cope, which is why one solution won’t work for all.
Without substantial financial assistance many NDIS participants would struggle to find affordable housing to move into.
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Shared ownership schemes can unlock access to suitable housing, although these are less common in Australia than overseas. And most are not specifically tailored for people with disability.
As well as meeting his UK counterpart, Philip Hammond (flanked by Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer), Scott Morrison has been talking with UK housing finance experts.
Will Oliver/EPA
Scott Morrison has been exploring a UK model for channelling investment via a specialist financial intermediary into new affordable housing provided by landlords with a social purpose. It makes sense.
This transit-oriented development in Oakland, California, combines residential housing with easy access to local transport options and amenities.
Eric Fredericks/flickr
A combination of transit-oriented centres, inclusionary zoning and a special rate on land instead of stamp duty could make housing more affordable by cutting congestion, development and travel costs.
The housing affordability crisis isn’t limited to the big cities – the Tweed Heads area, for instance, is rated worse than Melbourne in the latest survey.
AAP
Ecologically sound housing needs to be built on a much larger scale.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian needs to shed the Treasury view of housing construction as a silver bullet and back former premier Mike Baird’s social and affordable housing program.
Nikki Short/AAP
The new NSW premier is right to identify housing affordability as a priority for the people and economy of Sydney. It’s not just housing supply that’s the problem – action is needed on many fronts.
The growing numbers of pensioners in private rental accommodation use much of their income to pay for housing.
Alan Porritt/AAP
For the increasing proportion of people living in private rental accommodation who can expect to be dependent on the age pension, the prospects of financial and housing insecurity are grim.
The Minha Casa Minha Vida programme has built millions of affordable units, but Brazil’s poorest still struggle to find adequate housing.
Bruno Domingos/Reuters
Brazil should ask itself which is more important: having a roof over your head or owning the roof over your head?
Meeting the challenges of informal settlements, such as this one in Caracas, Venezuela, calls for integrated approaches that cut across urban scales and disciplines.
Hesam Kamalipour
Hesam Kamalipour, The University of Melbourne; Alexei Trundle, The University of Melbourne; André Stephan, The University of Melbourne; Hayley Henderson, The University of Melbourne, and Melanie Lowe, The University of Melbourne
Informal settlements are often undocumented or hidden on official maps, but they house about a billion people worldwide. Their existence demands a more sophisticated approach to urban development.
These units in suburban Parramatta were built as part of the 2009-12 national Social Housing Initiative.
Gethin Davison
Do affordable housing projects drive down property values? Does neighbours’ quality of life suffer? Case studies in Brisbane and Sydney suggest such fears aren’t justified.
The problem with the current rezoning approach is that it leads to huge windfall profits and developments aimed at the upper end of the market.
AAP
The community needs affordable housing and that requires meaningful targets for new developments. The only ones who will lose out are landholders who make windfall profits from rezoning.
The Collective Old Oak co-living block in London has more than 500 apartments with bedrooms and bathrooms. All other spaces are shared.
David Hawgood/Geograph
While some forms of co-living seek to match modern lifestyles and a desire to downsize, other profit-driven models simply exploit a lack of affordable housing alternatives.
Apartment layouts at Ritter Strasse 50, initiated by ifau and Jesko Fezer with Heide and Von Beckerath, are highly individualised.
Andrea Kroth
The need for new housing solutions for these low-income groups is clearly a pressing requirement.
With 700,000 vulnerable Australians depending on public housing, any proposal to change its status is likely to set off alarm bells.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
The report’s stated goal is to make the social housing system work better. It does not present as a manifesto for an entirely marketised and deregulated framework driven by the profit motive.
Premier Mike Baird (right) has been out promoting the Sydney Metro project, but has yet to explain how the benefits of massive public investment will be shared.
Stefanie Menezes/AAP
Who’ll profit from the value uplift arising from the huge investment of taxpayers’ funds in creating better-serviced, higher-density suburbs? And what will the changes mean for existing residents?
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University