tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/housing-researchers-45564/articlesHousing researchers – The Conversation2022-08-17T20:04:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1888092022-08-17T20:04:46Z2022-08-17T20:04:46ZPeople are shivering in cold and mouldy homes in a country that pioneered housing comfort research – how did that happen?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479517/original/file-20220817-10961-ju1ocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2000%2C4000%2C2634&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lisa Fotios/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The poor state of Australia’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-18/apartment-owners-sound-alarm-over-alleged-building-defects/101247114">residential</a>, and particularly <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-16/australian-first-study-mould-biotoxin-illness/101223548">rental</a>, housing stock is attracting increasing attention. This week it has been reported many renters are living in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-16/renters-shiver-below-minimum-healthy-temperature-report-finds/101333256">unhealthily cold</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/16/australian-rental-homes-colder-and-more-damp-than-who-safety-standards">damp housing</a>. The head of UNSW’s School of the Built Environment, Philip Oldfield, recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/13/freezing-indoors-thats-because-australian-homes-are-closer-to-tents-than-insulated-eco-buildings">described</a> the average Australian home as “closer to a tent than an insulated eco-building”. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.propertycouncil.com.au/Web/Content/Media_Release/National/2022/Over%20100%20organisations%20join%20forces%20in%20push%20for%20improved%20energy%20efficiency%20in%20Australian%20homes.aspx">joint statement</a> by more than 100 property, community, health and environmental organisations has called on next week’s meeting of the nation’s building ministers to increase the energy efficiency of new homes. The alliance wants to lift National Construction Code standards, such as raising the minimum thermal performance to seven stars, alongside a “whole-of-home” energy budget. The statement said Australia <a href="https://www.energymagazine.com.au/room-for-improvement-australia-and-germany-swap-notes-on-energy-efficiency-reform/">lags far behind</a> international energy-efficiency and building standards. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-youre-renting-chances-are-your-home-is-cold-with-power-prices-soaring-heres-what-you-can-do-to-keep-warm-184472">If you're renting, chances are your home is cold. With power prices soaring, here's what you can do to keep warm</a>
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<p>These concerns coincide with a growing housing shortage, rising building costs and a changing climate. But these circumstances are no reason to defer housing reforms. In the past, in a remarkably similar set of circumstances, Australia became a global innovator through a dedicated government agency focused on thermal comfort and performance. </p>
<h2>We once led the way in building for the climate</h2>
<p>We must go back to the second world war, though, to see Australia at the vanguard of housing built for the climate. The Ministry of Post-war Reconstruction’s substantial and alarm-raising <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-851519579/view?partId=nla.obj-851583656">Commonwealth Housing Report</a> of 1944 had forecast a shortfall of 300,000 dwellings by war’s end. On top of a materials shortage and a rapidly growing population, Chifley’s Labor government was keen to tackle the housing crisis head-on and to demonstrate Australia’s scientific prowess across a range of technical industries. </p>
<p>As the magnitude of the looming housing shortage became clear, a group of architects established a Small House Bureau to reinvigorate the housing landscape. In Victoria, the director was celebrated architect Robin Boyd. He advocated for smaller homes, notably if the main building material could be earth. </p>
<p>Boyd <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206872165?searchTerm=The%20materials%20are%20already%20on%20%E2%80%98your%20vacant%20building%20site">told a growing readership</a> desperate for cost-effective and accessible alternatives that earth walls were “cheap, strong, weatherproof, and highly insulating”. The materials are already on “your vacant building site”, he cried. Thus, it seemed reasonable to “make it of mud!”.</p>
<p>At the same time, the Commonwealth Experimental Building Station was set up on 16 hectares of bushland in Ryde, north of Sydney. Its mandate was to carry out experimental construction in different climatic and geographic locations. It was also to advise regulators, housing authorities and government departments. </p>
<p>Engineers, builders, architects and the public welcomed the innovative scientific approach to housing design across the nation’s varied and extreme weather and seasonal conditions. Post-war architects and scientists were keen to place a climatically defined framework on both the layout and construction of Australian homes. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Australian climate zones from a study of the thermal performance of housing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479326/original/file-20220816-2656-5u5jp5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A map of Australian climate zones from a 1950 study of the thermal performance of housing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">J.W. Drysdale, The Thermal Behaviour of Dwellings Technical Study/Commonwealth Experimental Buildings Station</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>One of the station’s main directives was to address “heating, lighting, ventilation, sound and thermal transmission, and performance generally”. The station developed an advanced thermal modelling program to enhance indoor comfort. The modelling took into account solar radiation, the value of shading, strategic ventilation and insulation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/house-hunters-are-rarely-told-the-home-energy-rating-little-wonder-the-average-is-as-low-as-1-8-stars-144873">House hunters are rarely told the home energy rating – little wonder the average is as low as 1.8 stars</a>
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<span class="caption">Build Your House of Earth by George F. Middleton.</span>
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<p>Amidst a slew of controlled experiments, the station’s chief technical officer, English architect and engineer George Middleton, championed the practical application of earth walls. Following a scoping tour of England, America, Russia and across Australia, Middleton examined the structural integrity, durability and effective function of “Pisé” or rammed earth. </p>
<p>A devotee of the aesthetic qualities and durability of earth, he produced several technical papers that placed earth walls “high among the accepted building methods”.</p>
<p>Continuing to advocate for earth over prefabricated materials, Middleton released Build Your House of Earth in 1953. It remains the authoritative text on rammed-earth building in Australia. </p>
<p>In just a few short years, the station researched, experimented and built dozens of prototypes. Its thermal response analysis tool (replicated 20 years later by UK building authorities) was ground-breaking. </p>
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<h2>Australia needs to make up lost ground</h2>
<p>Despite the station’s record of achievement, its funding for such investigations was cut in 1955. Some thermal investigations were all but abandoned. Without ongoing testing and field application, the capacity to influence material and performance standards waned. </p>
<p>The station did continue to provide regulations and standards for building systems and materials, and it was restructured in the mid-1980s into the National Building Technology Centre. It was later absorbed into CSIRO’s Division of Building, Construction and Engineering, which still oversees the Building Code of Australia. </p>
<p>At the centre of building research in Australia, the station was innovative and experimental. It was created decades before the energy conservation movement began to investigate building efficiency <a href="https://neep.org/blog/reflecting-history-energy-efficiency-while-looking-future">in North America and England</a>. </p>
<p>But our innovation and desire for experimentation have faded. Decades of industry lobbying, <a href="https://theconversation.com/buck-passing-on-apartment-building-safety-leaves-residents-at-risk-119000">toothless enforcement</a>, a lack of investment in and subsidies for refurbishing existing dwellings, and an outdated rating scheme (<a href="https://www.nathers.gov.au/">NatHERS</a>) have left many Australians out <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-16/renters-shiver-below-minimum-healthy-temperature-report-finds/101333256">in the cold</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/keen-to-retrofit-your-home-to-lower-its-carbon-footprint-and-save-energy-consider-these-3-things-175921">Keen to retrofit your home to lower its carbon footprint and save energy? Consider these 3 things</a>
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<p>In a continent notorious for its extremes, it is time to invest again in thermal research and testing. Australia needs to build resilience into new and existing houses. In a rapidly changing climate, we must consider the capacity and efficiency of earth and other natural materials as a viable and proven alternative to prefabricated materials.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Goldlust is affiliated with the Renters and Housing Union. </span></em></p>Housing standards in Australia have slipped behind the rest of the world. But momentum is growing to revive past ambitions to build the best homes we can.Rachel Goldlust, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Archaeology and History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/936552018-04-11T20:03:40Z2018-04-11T20:03:40ZVoices of residents missing in a time of crisis for public housing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212564/original/file-20180329-189795-12zb0jr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Gwynne walks through one of the nine Melbourne estates that is being sold in the public housing 'renewal' program.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Kelly</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2049.0">30% increase in the number of homeless people</a> between the 2006 and 2016 censuses is <a href="https://theconversation.com/homeless-numbers-will-keep-rising-until-governments-change-course-on-housing-93417">likely to continue in the absence of evidence-based public housing policy</a>. We need to rapidly extend public housing and services, according to <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-to-reboot-affordable-housing-funding-not-scrap-it-72861">housing</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/budget-2017-charts-new-social-and-affordable-housing-agenda-76794">homelessness</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/affordable-housing-finger-pointing-politics-and-possible-policy-solutions-75703">research</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/homeless-numbers-will-keep-rising-until-governments-change-course-on-housing-93417">Homeless numbers will keep rising until governments change course on housing</a>
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<p>Despite this research, the common approach by governments, in Australia and overseas, is to adopt a program of “renewal” and “regeneration” funded by the transfer of public lands to private hands. Housing estates are sold, transferred or redeveloped in partnership with a private developer. This often results in a shift of social housing dwellings from 100% publicly owned to mixed forms of tenure. </p>
<p>For public housing residents, being told that their estate is to be “renewed” is destabilising and can cause extreme stress. A lack of clarity about relocation timelines and processes compounds this. </p>
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<span class="caption">The Northcote housing estate in Melbourne occupies prime real estate along Merri Creek.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Kelly</span></span>
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<h2>Similar issues in Sydney, Melbourne and London</h2>
<p>Residents’ acceptance of this “renewal” approach varies greatly. While some are happy with the promise of a new home, opposition is growing in <a href="https://tenants.org.au/resource/tenant-action-groups">Australia</a> and <a href="http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/about/who-we-are/">internationally</a>. </p>
<p>The main issues being contested are planning approaches, consultation processes and the loss of public land overseen by housing authorities steering estate regeneration. </p>
<p>In Sydney, the government’s <a href="https://www.communitiesplus.com.au/">Communities Plus</a> program is redeveloping public housing assets and land through partnerships with not-for-profit and private developers.</p>
<p>The City of Melbourne recorded a <a href="https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/streetcount-2016-final-report.pdf">74% increase</a> in the numbers of people sleeping rough between 2014 and 2016. Opposition to the government’s <a href="https://www.vhhsba.vic.gov.au/housing-and-infrastructure/public-housing-renewal-program">public housing renewal program</a> is now growing in Melbourne. The government is relocating residents from nine inner-city housing estates, demolishing homes and transferring public land to private developers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-should-the-state-wriggle-out-of-providing-public-housing-79581">Why should the state wriggle out of providing public housing?</a>
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<p>In London, Harringey Council is <a href="http://www.haringey.gov.uk/regeneration/haringey-development-vehicle/haringey-development-vehicle-faqs/lendlease">working with</a> Australian developer Lendlease to transfer over £2 billion in council assets, including several housing estates across the borough. In response, the <a href="http://stophdv.com/">Stop-HDV</a> campaign is challenging the partnership and lack of community consultation through direct action, political campaigning, media representation and an ongoing legal challenge. </p>
<p>Opposition is fuelled by the redevelopment of the Heygate estate in Elephant and Castle. This has resulted in the <a href="http://www.southwark.gov.uk/news/2017/apr/regeneration-at-elephant-and-castle-and-affordable-homes">loss of over 1,000 social housing</a> units at council rental rates. </p>
<p>Affordable housing stock, rented at 80% of the standard market rate, replaced social housing. This makes it difficult for low-income residents to return to the estate. </p>
<h2>Residents struggle to be heard</h2>
<p>While government and developers undertake forms of consultation, residents affected by renewal repeatedly report that their voices are not being heard. This poses major problems for the reception of viable alternatives presented to development authorities by residents.</p>
<p>At a local scale, residents work to find other ways to make their voices heard. Visible across Sydney, a <a href="http://www.welivehere2017.com.au/">community light sculpture</a> at the Waterloo estate expressed residents’ feelings about the redevelopment of their homes through coloured lights. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-here-how-do-residents-feel-about-public-housing-redevelopment-83422">We Live Here: how do residents feel about public housing redevelopment?</a>
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<p>Other responses to regeneration by estate residents include <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/aug/05/e15-edinburgh-festival-2016-review-newham-protest-focus-e15-campaign">theatre</a>, <a href="https://cressinghamvoices.wordpress.com/">book writing</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGcuNBxkN1Y">spoken word</a> and <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/central-sydney/79yearold-graffiti-artist-gives-government-a-spray/news-story/ec1654524fb0e0e244ccb65483e23d0f">street art</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">Graffiti protests against the sale of the Northcote estate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Kelly</span></span>
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<p>In Melbourne, the government claims the “renewal” of the nine estates will result in an increase of 180 (10%) public housing dwellings. </p>
<p>This claim requires closer scrutiny. On the Northcote estate, for example, there are 85 dwellings with 201 bedrooms. According to a government-commissioned <a href="https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/84130/SH4-03.-Social-Infrastructure-Assessment.pdf">report</a> from September 2017, the public component of the redevelopment will have 96 properties with 139 bedrooms. That’s an 11% increase in dwellings, but a 31% decrease in bedrooms. </p>
<p>Even if the overall number of public housing bedrooms increased by 10%, this would not be enough. According to the <a href="http://housing.vic.gov.au/public-housing-waiting-list">Victorian Housing Register</a>, in December 2017 there were over 36,000 applications for public housing and over 7,000 waiting for more adequate housing. </p>
<h2>Alternatives need to be heard</h2>
<p>One of the underpinning assumptions made by government is that dispersing disadvantage will lead to better outcomes for public housing residents. </p>
<p>This, and the resulting <a href="https://theconversation.com/class-divide-defies-social-mixing-and-keeps-public-housing-stigma-alive-81560">social mix</a>, is the rationale for the program. This assumption is completely flawed. It imagines a fallacy of trickle-down socioeconomics achieved through minimal government spending. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212560/original/file-20180329-189795-h4y7xt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A boarded-up public housing residence on the Northcote estate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Kelly</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Academic experts and public housing resident activists continually express their objections to the rhetoric of renewal. Kate Shaw, an urban geographer with expertise in housing and planning, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/25/lives-in-limbo-public-housing-residents-face-eviction-in-victoria">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pretty much everything about the program in its current approach is wrong.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/social-mix-in-housing-one-size-doesnt-fit-all-as-new-projects-show-80956">Social mix in housing? One size doesn't fit all, as new projects show</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Delegates at a December 2017 <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/maximising-the-social-benefits-of-public-housing-renewal-tickets-38567970839#">public housing forum</a> in Melbourne called on the government to impose a moratorium on the process so alternatives can be heard. Yet voices continue to be ignored.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/governments-have-no-excuse-for-keeping-public-in-the-dark-on-public-housing-deals-90847">Governments have no excuse for keeping public in the dark on public housing deals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The progressive rhetoric of renewal obscures the displacement of residents, the fragmentation of lives and the privatisation of the public realm. Narratives of improvement drown out objections by residents and the wider public. Any argument against renewal is falsely equated with an argument against improving the lives of public housing residents.</p>
<p>This misdirection infects the public discourse around housing more generally. We are witnessing the complete reorganisation of the home. We think of homes as exchangeable stock. </p>
<p>For residents of public housing estates, the public realm is home, and home is a place of sanctuary and respite. The voices of residents need to be to the fore in the conversation if evidence-based public housing policy is to prevail. Retaining public places should be of interest to all who count themselves as part of the public. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was written in conversation with public housing advocate and resident William Gwynne. The author thanks William for his integral insights.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The problem with most public housing ‘renewal’ programs is that the residents have the least say in what happens to the places they call home. The evidence of housing research is also being ignored.David Kelly, PhD Candidate, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728612017-02-19T19:11:33Z2017-02-19T19:11:33ZAustralia needs to reboot affordable housing funding, not scrap it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156896/original/image-20170215-19613-18k8jpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New South Wales is the state that has suffered the biggest fall in available public housing stock since 2009. This has led to protests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Teresa Parker/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Federal government ministers have <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwijkc79h4TSAhXIHJQKHcRkBDMQFggZMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnational-affairs%2F9bn-home-affordability-scheme-to-be-dumped-in-may-budget%2Fnews-story%2F9765e3a8c7cbdca45a090464aff1c82e&usg=AFQjCNFwB0HuZgOjS0wcVn2K64HEOh7HTQ&bvm=bv.146496531,d.dGo">cast a cloud</a> over funding for social housing and homelessness services, leading to speculation that the National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) may not survive the 2017 budget.</p>
<p>Treasurer Scott Morrison and Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar point to the recent <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2017/housing-and-homelessness">Report on Government Services</a>, which shows the number of public housing properties has fallen, as evidence of the NAHA’s “abject failure”. Sukkar said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe it’s crucial that every dollar of spending on affordable housing programs increases the number and availability of public and social housing stock. Clearly, this objective has not been met.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It should be no surprise that Australia’s social housing has been largely static for 20 years. Everything we know about the system tells us it is not funded to even cover the costs of its ongoing operation, let alone growth to meet the needs of an expanding population. Aside from a one-off boost under the 2009 federal economic stimulus plan, social housing has been on a starvation ration for decades. </p>
<p>The whole system system is effectively being run at a loss. So, from the perspective of state governments, building a new public housing dwelling is just one more way of losing money.</p>
<p>The federal government has also long lamented the lack of transparency about how states and territories spend their NAHA funds – about AS$1.5 billion a year. And there are glaring gaps in the evidence about the operations and performance of public housing authorities. </p>
<p>In failing to act on <a href="http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/564381/Implementing-national-housing-reforms.pdf">a 2009 commitment</a> to modernise and enhance the Report on Government Services metrics, the states and territories have placed themselves in a weak position to rebut claims of ineffective financial management. </p>
<p>That said, everyone who has any contact with the public housing system knows it to be grossly underfunded. One-off studies occasionally illuminate the scale of the issue. For example, a <a href="http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/publications/performance-audit-reports/2013-reports/making-the-best-use-of-public-housing">2013 New South Wales Audit Office report</a> found a $600 million annual operating deficit for that state’s public housing. But no-one can easily quantify the extent of the problem using routinely published data.</p>
<h2>A snapshot of social housing in Australia</h2>
<p>Around 320,000 of Australia’s approximately 428,000 social housing dwellings remain under public housing authority control. This stock was amassed through a long series of funding agreements between federal and state and territory governments. These were known as the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreements until their 2009 NAHA rebranding. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156911/original/image-20170215-19598-1unf2ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia has had federal-state housing agreements since the Labor government of Ben Chifley initiated the first one in 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/StateHouseAgree">first Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement in 1945</a>, the basic arrangement was that the federal government would lend funds to state housing authorities to build houses. The states would cover the ongoing costs from the rents paid by working-class tenants.</p>
<p>And, at least to begin with, the housing authorities did build. They made a significant contribution to housing supply, amounting to roughly one in six houses built between 1945 and 1965.</p>
<p>From the early 1970s, the housing authorities were directed, justifiably, to provide more housing to low-income households unable to pay full “market” rents. However, their capital funding also went into a long decline. With the exception of a brief period in the mid-1980s, housing authorities never again built at their earlier rate. </p>
<p>A number of interlocking problems set in. Social housing’s declining share of the housing stock became more tightly rationed to the lowest-income households. This eroded the system’s rent base. At the same time, its ageing buildings and households with greater support needs increased its costs.</p>
<p>Two <a href="http://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/55">landmark</a> <a href="http://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/106">studies</a> by Jon Hall and Mike Berry charted the implications of these developments for the finances. At the end of the 1980s, all but one of the housing authorities ran an operating surplus. By 2004, all but one ran an operating deficit. </p>
<p>Various attempts to improve the situation have been made. The 1989 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement switched federal funding from loans to grants; the 1996 agreement allowed federal funds to be spent on recurrent expenses. In the early 2000s, rebates on social housing rents were reduced, slightly increasing revenue. </p>
<p>Modest amounts of public housing have also been transferred into the hands of <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/10711/AHURI_Final_Report_No273_Recent-housing-transfer-experience-in-Australia-implications-for-affordable-housing-industry-development.pdf">not-for-profit community housing providers</a>. Partly, this is to take advantage of the eligibility of community housing tenants for Commonwealth Rent Assistance. But although this often enables these providers to run a small operational surplus, it isn’t enough to fund stock replacement or any significant expansion.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the overall stock has been eaten away, through market sales of public housing, and run down, through skimping on repairs and maintenance. Both are unsustainable strategies. </p>
<h2>Running a system without good data</h2>
<p>If the broad outlines of the problem are clear, there are major deficiencies in the data as to the details. The Hall and Berry analysis is now dated. There is no current evidence base that shows transparently and consistently what the social housing system in each state and territory costs, and how these costs are met.</p>
<p>For example, the Report on Government Services purports to show the “net recurrent cost per dwelling” for each state and territory. But this does not differentiate between distinct expenditure components such as management and maintenance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/5760/AHURI_Final_Report_No257_Assessing_management_costs_and_tenant_outcomes_in_social_housing_recommended_methods_and_future_directions.pdf">Our 2015 research</a> found that this metric was a “black box”, subject to implausibly large variations across jurisdictions. These reflected the vagaries of departmental restructures, rather than a sound accounting of social housing operations. </p>
<p>There is little doubt that all public housing authorities are now in deficit. However, the Report on Government Services provides no data on the relative scale of these funding shortfalls. Nor do governments routinely reveal the scale of system costs still met by tenants’ rents, nor through stock sales.</p>
<h2>What should a rebooted NAHA do?</h2>
<p>Although the NAHA does it inadequately, an enduring program of federal funding for operational expenses is essential to sustain the social housing system. Such funding cannot be “replaced”, as Morrison has suggested, by a government-backed aggregated bond financing model. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/sensible-reform-to-finance-affordable-housing-deserves-cross-party-support-72059">bond aggregator model</a> depends on social housing providers having a durable subsidy from government that pays the difference between their ongoing costs and the revenue from rent that low-income tenants can afford.</p>
<p>Instead, NAHA should be rebooted to deliver three things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>capital funding for new social housing stock, distributed according to an assessment of current and projected needs in each state and territory;</p></li>
<li><p>recurrent funding, distributed according to the number of social housing dwellings in each state and territory and an assessment of reasonable net recurrent costs; and</p></li>
<li><p>clear accounting by social housing providers for costs of provision and the contributions of tenants, government funding and other sources of income towards meeting these costs.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Many in the social housing world would agree the NAHA framework is far from transparent and that there is no certainty that NAHA money is optimally spent. But a ministerial focus on these issues while ignoring the system’s chronic underfunding smacks of re-arranging deckchairs. </p>
<p>Rather than scrapping the NAHA, the system should be rebooted, to properly fund both the growth and ongoing operations of social housing. This must be done on the basis of clear targets for the level of need to be met and the reasonable costs of providing the service.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Martin receives funding from AHURI. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hal Pawson receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the Australian Research Council and Launch Housing
</span></em></p>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.Chris Martin, Research Fellow, City Housing, UNSW SydneyHal Pawson, Associate Director - City Futures - Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731142017-02-16T03:39:57Z2017-02-16T03:39:57ZRental insecurity: why fixed long-term leases aren’t the answer<p>The insecurity of rental housing and unsatisfactory condition of many properties are receiving much-deserved media attention following the release of a <a href="https://tenants.org.au/national-rental-research">national survey of tenants</a>. </p>
<p>However, the stock response to the insecurity this revealed – longer fixed-term agreements – is not the answer. The solution to the failure of existing legal protections must take into account the structural features of the rental market, including the mobility of tenants.</p>
<p>The survey, commissioned by Choice, National Shelter and the National Association of Tenant Organisations, presents evidence of a widespread sense of worry, dissatisfaction and injustice on the part of tenants. According to respondents:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>75% feel that competition for rental properties is “fierce”;</p></li>
<li><p>50% are concerned about being “blacklisted” on a tenancy database;</p></li>
<li><p>50% have experienced some form of discrimination;</p></li>
<li><p>30% live in properties requiring non-urgent repairs, and 8% require urgent repairs;</p></li>
<li><p>11% experienced a rent increase; and</p></li>
<li><p>10% reported an angry response after requesting repairs. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Residential tenancy laws cover many of these problems. That tenants are not successfully exercising their legal rights indicates a deeper problem of <a href="https://theconversation.com/renting-for-life-housing-shift-requires-rethink-of-renters-rights-20538">insecurity in renting</a>. This problem is both structural and legal.</p>
<h2>Small landlords and mobile tenants</h2>
<p>Small landlords dominate the Australian rental sector: <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4130.0">72% own a single property</a> each. Most (62%) make a net rental loss, so it is important to them that they can switch out of the sector when it suits them. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/142">Research</a> for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) indicates that 21% of landlords exit the sector within their first 12 months. By five years, 59% will have exited. </p>
<p>When landlords exit, they might sell to another landlord or an owner-occupier. <a href="http://econpapers.repec.org/article/blaecorec/v_3a81_3ay_3a2005_3ai_3as1_3ap_3as82-s95.htm">Older research</a> indicates that the transfer of rental housing into owner-occupation is a significant feature of the Australian market. </p>
<p>These dynamics cause structural insecurity for tenants. They also mean many landlords do not willingly tie up their sole asset in a long fixed term. </p>
<p>Despite the legal and structural insecurity of the sector, most moves by tenants are for their own reasons. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4130.0%7E2013-14%7EMain%20Features%7EHousing%20Mobility%20and%20Conditions%7E10002">ABS Housing Mobility and Conditions</a> survey shows that tenants generally are very mobile: 81% have been in their current premises for less than five years. About half of moves between rental premises were for “personal reasons” (including family and employment reasons); 20% were to get more suitably sized housing; and 15% because of a termination notice from the landlord. </p>
<p>This degree of mobility suggests it is not in most tenants’ interest to enter into long fixed terms and the rental liability it entails. That’s not to mention the risk of being tied to a small landlord who is an unknown quantity and has no business reputation to protect.</p>
<h2>Residential tenancies law in Australia</h2>
<p>Each state and territory in Australia has its own Residential Tenancies Act. These differ in the details but are broadly similar in outline. All provide standard terms for tenancy agreements, processes for rent increases and terminations, and relatively accessible dispute resolution and eviction procedures. </p>
<p>Most do a decent job, on paper at least, when it comes to repairs and maintenance. Generally speaking, landlords are obliged to ensure rented premises are provided fit for habitation and maintained in a reasonable state of repair. </p>
<p>This means tenants are entitled to repairs even if the premises were in bad condition to begin with, and <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2016/500.html">even if they pay relatively low rent</a>. Tasmania is an exception: there, landlords are obliged to maintain premises in the condition in which they were first provided.</p>
<p>Similarly, each state and territory prohibits landlords from interfering in tenants’ quiet enjoyment of their premises. Most expand this right to protect tenants’ “reasonable peace, comfort and privacy”.</p>
<p>These are important protections, even though there may be scope to improve them – for example, by adding specific standards for <a href="https://tenants.org.au/node/230">safety devices</a> and fixing particular legal defects like Tasmania’s. The great problem is that the ability of landlords to give notices of termination without grounds undermines the existing protections in every state and territory. </p>
<p>Without-grounds termination notices give cover to terminations by landlords for bad reasons, such as retaliation and discrimination. This means the prospect of receiving such a notice hangs over tenants when repairs and other issues arise.</p>
<h2>What’s the solution, then, to high insecurity?</h2>
<p>The legal insecurity of tenants might be improved in several ways. </p>
<p>Under the current laws of each state and territory, a fixed term prevents the landlord from terminating without grounds, and on other grounds such as sale or change of use of the premises, for the duration of the fixed term. It also prevents the tenant from lawfully terminating without grounds. </p>
<p>The idea of long fixed-term tenancy agreements is occasionally raised in the <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/four-changes-australia-desperately-needs-to-make-to-rental-agreements-20170126-gtyhhl/">media</a> and has caught the attention of the <a href="http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/About_us/Have_your_say/Residential_tenancy_laws_review.page">New South Wales</a> and <a href="http://fairersaferhousing.vic.gov.au/home">Victorian</a> governments in their reviews of residential tenancies laws. Both those governments are considering how to facilitate long (five-year) fixed terms, including by altering other aspects of their laws – such as the protections about repairs.</p>
<p>But this approach presents problems of its own. Long fixed terms are unwieldy for landlords and tenants. Trying to make them more useful also threatens other valuable legal protections. </p>
<p>The present structures of the Australian rental sector call for different reforms. </p>
<p>We can reconcile the mobility of tenants with their sense of insecurity if we think of “security” as more than just the legal right to occupy. <a href="http://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/170">AHURI researchers</a> have conceived of “secure occupancy” to encompass a person’s ability to make a home of premises and exercise housing autonomy. This includes the ability to confidently get repairs done in one’s premises, or keep a pet – and to freely decide to make a new home elsewhere.</p>
<p>This conception points towards a stronger reform agenda for improving security. Instead of long fixed terms, we should abolish without-grounds termination by landlords. </p>
<p>The law should instead provide a comprehensive set of reasonable grounds for termination, with notice periods and exclusion periods appropriate to each ground. This accommodates our present lot of small landlords, and can be done immediately. </p>
<p>Over a longer term, we should set our housing tax and finance policies to get a more stable sort of landlord. That would be one who operates at greater scale, has a reputation to protect and is less interested in switching out of the sector than in receiving a steady trickle of rents from secure tenants.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Martin receives funding from AHURI. </span></em></p>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.Chris Martin, Research Fellow, City Housing, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728672017-02-15T01:07:10Z2017-02-15T01:07:10ZStates drag feet on affordable housing, with Victoria the worst<p>Moral panic over recent increases in visibly <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-18/not-illegal-to-sleep-on-the-street-in-melbourne-police-say/8190228">homeless people in central Melbourne</a> has brought to the fore the <a href="https://www.anglicarevic.org.au/solving-homelessness-crisis-open-letter-2/">critical shortage of affordable housing</a> across the metropolitan areas of Australia’s wealthiest cities. But living on the street is only the tip of the iceberg. Many more households are living in insecure and/or overpriced accommodation. Their plight is due to an undersupply of appropriately priced, sized and situated <a href="http://www.anglicare.asn.au/research-reports/the-rental-affordability-snapshot">rental housing</a>.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth government is reportedly <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwijkc79h4TSAhXIHJQKHcRkBDMQFggZMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnational-affairs%2F9bn-home-affordability-scheme-to-be-dumped-in-may-budget%2Fnews-story%2F9765e3a8c7cbdca45a090464aff1c82e&usg=AFQjCNFwB0HuZgOjS0wcVn2K64HEOh7HTQ&bvm=bv.146496531,d.dGo">planning to scrap the National Affordable Housing Agreement</a> with the states. <a href="http://www.acoss.org.au/media_release/acoss-reports-of-naha-axing-alarming/">Without a clear alternative</a>, the weakness of state policies, which lack clear targets and mechanisms for providing more and better affordable housing, adds to the problem. One state, Victoria, still doesn’t have an affordable housing strategy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sa.gov.au/**__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/42564/Housing-Strategy-SA-2013-18.pdf">South Australia’s strategy</a> has 15% <a href="https://theconversation.com/sydney-needs-higher-affordable-housing-targets-69207">inclusionary zoning</a> as one of several mechanisms to achieve affordable housing targets. Western Australia provides regular progress updates on the regional targets of its <a href="http://www.housing.wa.gov.au/aboutus/affordablehousingstrategy/Pages/default.aspx">Affordable Housing Strategy 2010-2020</a>. Tasmania adopted a <a href="https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/housing/key_projects_for_2014-15/tasmanian_affordable_housing_strategy">ten-year strategy</a> in 2015. </p>
<p>New South Wales has had affordable housing policies in place since 2009. The NSW government has a <a href="http://www.socialhousing.nsw.gov.au/?a=348442">new plan</a> to build more social housing and improve existing stock. Queensland released a <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/housing/public-community-housing/have-your-say-housing-strategy/">draft strategy</a> in March 2016.</p>
<p>While these state policies <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/2093/AHURI_Final_Report_No195_Affordable_housing,_urban_renewal_and_planning.pdf">vary in their success</a>, Victoria does not even have a strategy to critique.</p>
<h2>Victoria’s toxic planning legacy</h2>
<p>No doubt Premier Daniel Andrews inherited several industrial-strength cans of toxic planning waste when Victorian Labor won office in November 2014. This legacy came not only from the Liberals, but from the earlier Bracks-Brumby Labor government. </p>
<p>Under the 2000s Labor government, the fourth new metropolitan strategy in four decades, <a href="http://www.dtpli.vic.gov.au/planning/plans-and-policies/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/melbourne-2030-planning-for-sustainable-growth">Melbourne 2030</a>, largely failed to stop sprawl. The main excuse for sprawl – that increased and largely unregulated housing supply would magically enable affordability – had <a href="http://www.monash.edu.au/ross-tests/news/show/an-end-to-affordable-housing-in-melbourne">become a sad joke</a>. </p>
<p>As former Labor adviser Joel Deane’s book <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/joel-deane-opens-labors-war-room-to-the-public-in-catch-and-kill-the-politics-of-power-20150721-gigzyp.html">Catch and Kill</a> shows, inability to respond to basic public concerns about planning and transport was perhaps the most significant factor in Labor’s 2010 election defeat.</p>
<p>If Labor had been ineffective in creating new affordable housing, the Liberals’ planning decisions between 2010 and 2014 were disastrous. Australia’s largest urban renewal site – Fishermans Bend – was <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/report-slams-matthew-guy-on-rezoning-of-fishermans-bend-20151019-gkcyrv.html">drastically up-zoned</a> from Industrial to Capital City (also known as “Anything Goes”). They did this without extracting a cent in added value from landowners towards affordable housing – or any other infrastructure. </p>
<p>Huge parts of the southeastern suburbs – Liberal strongholds – were essentially walled off from new housing, even though these had some of the best school and transport infrastructure to serve a rapidly growing population. Hundreds of job cuts meant the civil service lost experience and capacity to do better.</p>
<h2>A long wait for action on affordable housing</h2>
<p>The Victorian Labor 2014 election platform <a href="http://www.sehc.org.au/index.php/news/government/671-victoria-s-new-minister-for-housing">stated</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All Victorians have a right to safe, affordable and secure housing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet in more than two years since its election, the Labor government has not completed any of the major reforms that would enable affordable housing. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.planmelbourne.vic.gov.au/plan-melbourne-refresh">Plan Melbourne’s “refresh”</a> has not been published in its final form. The <a href="https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/resources-and-education/legislation/public-consultations-and-reviews/fairer-safer-housing">Residential Tenancies Act</a> still has to be strengthened. The <a href="http://www.dtpli.vic.gov.au/planning/panels-and-committees/recent-panels-and-committees/residential-zones-standing-advisory-committee">residential zone review</a> hasn’t been completed. </p>
<p>Perhaps most disturbingly, we are still <a href="http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria-steps-up-on-housing-affordability/">waiting for the results</a> of the early announcement that the state treasurer was going to work with the planning and housing ministers to develop an integrated affordable housing strategy.</p>
<p>A new advisory body, Infrastructure Victoria, published a <a href="http://www.infrastructurevictoria.com.au/sites/default/files/images/IV%2030%20Year%20Strategy%20WEB%20V2.PDF">30-Year Infrastructure Strategy</a> in December 2016. “Social housing” (public and non-profit) was one of its top three priorities. However, compared with principles of “a good plan”, the affordable housing section of this strategy does not pass the test. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.china-up.com:8080/international/case/case/1582.pdf">literature on plan analysis</a>, good plans should have seven elements: a clear vision; specific goals; a fact base informing alternatives; a spatialised sense of what goes where; a very specific implementation plan, with costs, timelines and responsible authorities; a monitoring and evaluation plan; and specific horizontal (across all parts of government, the private sector and civil society) and vertical (alignment between national, state and local government) integration.</p>
<h2>Vancouver shows how to do it</h2>
<p>The City of Vancouver’s <a href="http://vancouver.ca/people-programs/vancouvers-housing-strategy.aspx">Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2012-2021</a> is an example of an affordable housing plan that ticks the boxes. It has a clear vision embodied in the strategy’s subtitle:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A home for everyone.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The strategy sets specific numeric housing targets. These cover everything from supportive housing for homeless people with mental disabilities, to social housing, market rental and home-ownership options. </p>
<p>These targets are based on a robust and transparent analysis of housing trends across the city. While all subsequent neighbourhood plans are intended to achieve a mix of dwelling cost and size, there is a particular emphasis on locating supportive housing near areas with significant homeless populations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156684/original/image-20170213-26007-1wkfb65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vancouver has shown what a comprehensive affordable housing strategy can achieve.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/2432868269">Kenny Louie/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The partnerships with other levels of government, private developers and non-profit providers are comprehensive. A new <a href="http://vancouver.ca/your-government/vancouver-affordable-housing-agency.aspx">Vancouver Affordable Housing Authority</a> has been established to coordinate these efforts. Since the report’s adoption, further mechanisms such as a community land trust have been established. Annual reporting against the targets is available on the City of Vancouver’s website.</p>
<p>In contrast, Infrastructure Victoria is an advisory body to state government, not an implementation agency. Its vision of a “thriving, connected and sustainable Victoria where everyone can access good jobs, education and services” begs the question of how progress towards these attributes would be measured. </p>
<p>Infrastructure Victoria does estimate an extra <a href="http://www.infrastructurevictoria.com.au/node/80">30,000 affordable homes</a> are needed over the next ten years. But it admits this figure is not well justified, due to a lack of good information on affordable housing deficits. </p>
<p>It recommends further work on an affordable housing plan with specific funding streams. However, this cannot really be expected to be the plan that “tackles [the] affordable housing shortage”, as its own <a href="http://www.infrastructurevictoria.com.au/node/80">website boasted</a> of the draft report.</p>
<p>At best, Infrastructure Victoria’s plan is a baby step. It does clearly state the importance of social housing as critical infrastructure. It also begins to justify mechanisms that could achieve some scaling up of affordable housing outcomes. </p>
<p>But the public housing waiting list now has <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorias-public-housing-waiting-list-skyrockets-20151109-gkuao1.html">more than 35,000 names</a>. About 120,000 households receiving Commonwealth Rent Assistance are still unable to afford living where they do. That includes <a href="http://yoursay.infrastructurevictoria.com.au/30-year-strategy/application/files/3514/7763/3398/Infrastructure_Victoria_30-year_strategy_Launch_Housing_Submission_October_2016.pdf">50,000 households in the lowest income bracket</a>. And another one million new households are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3236.0Main%20Features82011%20to%202036?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3236.0&issue=2011%20to%202036&num=&view">expected to move into Victoria</a> within the 30-year timeframe of the infrastructure strategy. </p>
<p>This all means that baby steps will not be enough to prevent rapidly increasing homelessness.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Professor Carolyn Whitzman helped organise the 10th <a href="http://ahrc2017.com.au/">Australasian Housing Researchers Conference</a> (AHRC) hosted by RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research, with the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University, from February 15-17 at RMIT University in Melbourne. She is presenting a paper on the subject of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Whitzman is the lead researcher on the project ‘Transforming Housing: affordable housing for all’, and received funding for this research from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, Launch Housing and Brotherhood of St Laurence.</span></em></p>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.Carolyn Whitzman, Professor of Urban Planning, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/716282017-02-14T19:09:47Z2017-02-14T19:09:47ZMoving on from home ownership for ‘Generation Rent’<p>The inequalities and inequities that housing markets generate have become a cross-national issue in the last decade or so. In <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/money/housing-jobs-widen-generational-divide-20160407-go0pc7.html">Australia</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/27/home-ownership-figures-are-exaggerated-says-thinktank-resolution-foundation">UK</a> and the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/06/07/154504195/generation-rent-slamming-door-of-homeownership">US</a>, discussions of “Generation Rent” have taken centre stage.</p>
<p>In the generational debate, older, asset-wealthy owner-occupiers advantaged by previously more stable lending conditions and historic house price trends have been pitted against younger cohorts. The latter have been priced out of the home buyers’ market and <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjHkufxj4TSAhXCH5QKHVGWDeMQFggnMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Fnation%2Fthe-australian-dream-soon-fewer-than-50-per-cent-will-own-home%2Fnews-story%2F3fe46d2b31ccc858cedf66d50af8e336&usg=AFQjCNEG8rTrUlgtrwtDdL2c5pfM4Gz0kw">pushed into rental housing</a> in <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/if-you-dont-buy-a-house-before-turning-40-you-never-will/news-story/f3efd7e3ab6b191eb1268d7ad5a8f00c">ostensible perpetuity</a>. </p>
<p>Evidence of just what “Generation Rent” is and, more importantly, why it matters have, however, been somewhat fuzzier.</p>
<h2>Economies and security built on housing</h2>
<p>One reason <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m7JHMON79k&t=11s">declining access to home ownership for younger people</a> is of such concern is that housing is much more than housing. The wealth accumulated in our homes over our lifetimes has come to represent economic security and a means to live <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/generation-rent-forever-great-australian-dream-becomes-a-financial-nightmare-20160519-goytqf/">more comfortably in old age</a>. It’s seen as a buffer in times of hardship – buying a home is an implicit part of the welfare system in many contexts. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3m7JHMON79k?wmode=transparent&start=11" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Declining home ownership is contributing to inequality.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Governments have largely nurtured this. They often support or even fund the growth of home ownership and protect property value increases. It has become increasingly evident, however, that this approach to housing markets as a kind of welfare policy has fundamental limitations.</p>
<p>For one thing, the global financial crisis of almost a decade ago demonstrated how deeply rooted and transnational housing finance has become. A welfare system that relies on home ownership in a globalised era is thus critically vulnerable.</p>
<p>Although property markets work at a local level, global capital has become increasingly intrusive. Investment purchases are financed from around the world. While our homes function as our family savings accounts, housing now also serves as safety deposit boxes for transnational middle classes and wealthy elites. </p>
<p>The global financial crisis also illustrated that the very conditions that may require home owners to draw on their property assets as an economic buffer are likely to undermine their value and make them difficult to access when needed. </p>
<p>Since the crisis, housing has again become an overwhelming focus of investment, sustained by quantitative easing, weaker financial markets, and low interest rates. This is driving renewed inflation in house prices, especially <a href="https://theconversation.com/sydneys-global-vision-bad-news-for-local-housing-affordability-22761">in global cities</a>, with overflows <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/david-uren-economics/dont-blame-property-prices-on-a-housing-shortage/news-story/125f39e559f1190b28204a494392c11e">downwards</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-housing-affordability-crisis-in-regional-australia-yes-and-heres-why-71808">outwards</a>. </p>
<h2>Divide grows between owners and renters</h2>
<p>Buying a home is now well beyond the capacity of many among the increasingly vulnerable cohorts of younger people. They have also faced reduced job security, subdued wage rises, and diminishing access to credit.</p>
<p>As a result, home ownership rates across English-speaking societies, but also <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/psp.1961/pdf">elsewhere</a>, have fallen significantly, driven by the collapse in home buying among millennials.</p>
<p>While it is easy to blame globalisation (especially foreign investors) and dwell on the historic advantages baby boomers enjoyed, much of the problem lies with our housing systems and especially with our approaches to fixing them. Critically, by relying on home ownership and making homes default savings accounts essential to our long-term welfare security (in the context of austerity or welfare state retrenchment), we have come to depend on them for much more than housing. </p>
<p>This is why Generation Rent represents so much of a challenge. It requires more than dealing with the supply and distribution of home ownership. It may require a complete rethinking of home ownership as a basis of our housing systems.</p>
<p>The term “Generation Rent” is not particularly useful as it implies direct conflict between cohorts. In fact, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2202684599&feature=iv&src_vid=3m7JHMON79k&v=u-ML2Rh7bTg">opposite is true</a>. In recent years different generations within families have increasingly mobilised around their collective property wealth in the face of diminishing economic security. </p>
<p>In the UK, around one in ten first-time home-buyers were getting help from parents in the mid-1990s. By 2005 this was up to 25%. And since the GFC the figure has soared <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLOvhsnO3-s">to as high as 75%</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tLOvhsnO3-s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The family assets invested in housing are undergoing profound shifts.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, has been a remarkable shift in family deployment of assets. Numbers of private landlords increased from just over half a million in the early 1990s to around 2.2 million by 2015 (equivalent to almost one in ten households). This represents a remarkable boom in new landlords, owning just one or two extra properties, since the beginning of the century. </p>
<p><a href="https://policyandpoliticsblog.com/2017/01/11/what-ever-happened-to-home-ownership-and-asset-based-welfare/">Various studies</a> suggest that house hoarding and “landlording” have become an extension of the home-ownership welfare strategy. Buying and then renting out an extra home represents an effective means of ensuring long-term security. It’s also something that can be drawn upon to help out, or even pass onto the kids. </p>
<p>Generations, then, are not necessarily at odds with each other. There is little evidence that younger people directly blame their elders for their housing situation. In fact, it is older people that are most likely to help them out.</p>
<h2>Problem is deeper than Generation Rent</h2>
<p>Underlying Generation Rent is essentially a wider problem derived from the maturation of home-ownership systems in a diverse numbers of contexts, from Ireland to Japan. </p>
<p>In the past, home-ownership rates and property prices boomed, supporting asset accumulation for particular cohorts. However, this created conditions for tighter access, which has undermined the tenure and reinvigorated low-level rent-seeking in the longer term. </p>
<p>The outcome is not so much a polarisation between generations, but between younger people based on the housing market position, or strategy, of their parents, or even grandparents. The children of secure home owners are likely to eventually be helped out or inherit. The children of renters, over-leveraged mortgage-holders or ageing households who rely on their unmortgaged property to meet their own needs are likely to remain locked out unless they have a considerable income.</p>
<p>In the context of continued flows of global capital and the normalisation of property investment as family welfare strategy, we cannot realistically expect that socioeconomic inequalities derived from housing or problems of access among younger people are going to be reversed. </p>
<p>Governments have largely responded to declining home ownership by sponsoring access to credit or <a href="http://www.firsthome.gov.au/">providing extra cash</a> for potential home buyers. This has done little other than revive house price inflation and thus aggravate the affordability issue. </p>
<p>Rental housing careers are likely then to become more common and last for longer. We therefore need better means to reconcile tenants’ needs with both housing and welfare practices. This will involve policymakers and politicians imaging other ways of “doing” housing that consider different types of households and life courses, tenures and housing ladders. </p>
<p>Younger people themselves seem to be adapting to a post-homeownership landscape. While owner-occupation remains deeply normalised, household situations have become increasingly diverse. Sharing with friends or strangers has <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676261.2015.1112884">become much more common</a>.</p>
<p>In cities, this shift has started to stimulate private-sector responses, including large-scale purpose-built developments expressly <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36288977">tailored to the needs of Generation Rent</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Richard Ronald is a keynote speaker at the 10th <a href="http://ahrc2017.com.au/">Australasian Housing Researchers Conference</a> (AHRC) hosted by RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research, with the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University, from February 15-17 at RMIT University in Melbourne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71628/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Ronald receives funding from the European Research Council: HOUWEL, Grant Agreement No., 283881</span></em></p>Generation Rent may force a complete rethinking of home ownership as a basis of our housing systems. Rather than representing security, these housing markets make us vulnerable.Richard Ronald, Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Studies, University of AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/723542017-02-14T00:06:51Z2017-02-14T00:06:51ZHousing affordability problems might not be all bad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156120/original/image-20170209-17316-18oicly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">To understand how households cope, we may need to look beneath broad patterns of affordability to the interplay of housing costs with other problems.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Markham-suburbs_aerial-edit2.jpg">IDuke/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For all the talk of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-youre-serious-about-affordable-sydney-housing-premier-heres-a-must-do-list-71791">housing affordability</a> crisis <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-housing-affordability-crisis-in-regional-australia-yes-and-heres-why-71808">across Australia</a>, having <a href="https://theconversation.com/slippers-and-stickers-the-hidden-victims-of-rising-house-prices-42816">unaffordable housing</a> isn’t necessarily bad for people. This is perhaps a dangerous statement to make, but housing <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-million-aussies-are-experiencing-high-financial-stress-64367">cost stresses</a> and other problems – when experienced in isolation – may be tolerable. Difficulties usually emerge not from one problem but from an accumulation of problems.</p>
<p>Housing affordability alone may have limited impact on people if they are able to adjust the household budget or their rental or mortgage costs. But if a household has an accumulation of problems (for example, unaffordable housing, plus insecure tenure, plus unemployment), that greatly reduces their capacity to adjust or respond effectively.</p>
<p>Acknowledging the difference between separate problems and an accumulation of problems is more important than you’d think. If we don’t, we underplay the impact of multiple problems on people, incorrectly identify who most needs assistance and probably misdirect our attempts to help.</p>
<p>Generations of Australians have enjoyed very high housing standards compared to most other nations. For the last couple of decades, though, cracks have appeared (and are widening) in the Great Australian Dream.</p>
<p>Australia now has some of the <a href="http://demographia.com/dhi.pdf">most unaffordable housing</a> in the world. The problems of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-100-years-without-slum-housing-in-australia-is-coming-to-an-end-64153">housing quality</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dickensian-approach-to-residential-tenants-lingers-in-australian-law-65146">insecurity</a> in the private rental sector are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-secure-and-affordable-housing-is-an-increasing-worry-for-age-pensioners-69350">increasing</a>. </p>
<p>And the <a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-poor-in-australia-what-has-happened-to-public-housing-9853">public housing safely net</a> is now so small it <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-policy-success-not-failure-has-driven-australias-housing-crisis-53751">cannot catch all</a> of the people who need it. </p>
<p>Researchers, governments and Australia as a society are concerned and heavily invested in understanding and responding to housing-related problems. But perhaps we are too “problem-focused”. </p>
<p>We often seek to understand and solve housing affordability, or rental insecurity, or homelessness, or even more broadly, employment or problems associated with disability. But we tend to look at each aspect separately. </p>
<p>In doing so, we overlook the fact that many housing-related problems are experienced in combination – usually by the same people. </p>
<h2>Teasing out patterns of problems</h2>
<p>What if we were to think of people with multiple problems, instead of the separate problems that multiple people have?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155269/original/image-20170201-22560-14ebw5a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What if we were to think of people with multiple problems, instead of the separate problems that multiple people have?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.001</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the current edition of <a href="http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0264275116301202/1-s2.0-S0264275116301202-main.pdf?_tid=ccb74ef4-9fe2-11e6-bd54-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1477970892_f65015c83d558a0588445b8df4df156e">Cities</a>, we model how people’s problems accumulate. Using data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) dataset, we look at more than 17,000 adult Australians in unaffordable housing. We define people as having unaffordable housing if they have low to moderate incomes and spend more than 30% of their household income on housing costs.</p>
<p>Our research set out to test the degree to which these people experience multiple housing and related problems. In this experiment we focus on six problems: affordability, locational advantage, security, welfare, employment and disability.</p>
<p>This simple analysis far from captures the full breadth of housing-related problems that individuals face. Even so, it reveals enough about people’s accumulation of housing problems in Australia to challenge our current thinking. </p>
<p>Our analysis shows us that only a relatively small proportion of people (around 10%) have an accumulation of these housing-related vulnerabilities. But simply identifying who has multiple problems doesn’t necessarily indicate the package of assistance they might need. </p>
<p>When we examine the collection of accumulated problems among the 10%, we see few clear patterns of shared problems. Even in this small analysis, there are 40 distinct combinations of problems. </p>
<p>The largest group sharing a pattern of problems represents only 12% of the 10%. Remember that we are only looking at a limited list of six problems here. It would almost certainly be much more complex in the real world. </p>
<p>The findings allow us to reflect on how assistance might shift if focused on people with an accumulation of problems. Using the example of housing affordability, we might seek to address it for every person in the whole population of 17,000 classified as having unaffordable housing. </p>
<p>However, this research shows that more than half of these people (60%) do not have any other problems. </p>
<h2>How does this affect policy?</h2>
<p>Perhaps our concern for housing affordability should be disproportionately focused on the small group who have an accumulation of multiple problems. </p>
<p>What this research leaves us with is a call for a different way to think about and respond to housing-related problems. It suggests we should look beyond separate problems – such as housing affordability – and focus more attention on the people with an accumulation of multiple problems. </p>
<p>The substantial variation in combinations of housing problems also suggests that “individualised” responses may be much more effective than generic packages of problem-focused assistance. </p>
<p>To some extent, the suggestion that we should be thinking about people’s accumulation of vulnerabilities and problems is not new. </p>
<p>Policy thinking appears to be heading in this direction anyway. Australia is well down the path of exploring individualised welfare, with approaches and packages like Consumer Directed Care and the NDIS (the intentions of which were well discussed in <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/5664/AHURI_Final_Report_No253_Individualised-and-market-based-housing-assistance-evidence-and-policy-options.pdf?utm_source=website&utm_medium=report.PDF&utm_campaign=https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/253">recent work</a>). </p>
<p>Perhaps the way we think about housing affordability just needs to catch up.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Emma Baker is presenting research on housing children at the 10th <a href="http://ahrc2017.com.au/">Australasian Housing Researchers Conference</a> (AHRC) hosted by RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research (CUR), with the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University, from February 15-17 at RMIT University in Melbourne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Baker receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). </span></em></p>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.Emma Baker, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/725862017-02-13T19:09:14Z2017-02-13T19:09:14ZWhy housing supply shouldn’t be the only policy tool politicians cling to<p>The most popular government policy at the moment for solving housing affordability continues to be increasing housing supply. After a visit to the UK to look at this very problem, <a href="http://sjm.ministers.treasury.gov.au/transcript/006-2017/">Treasurer Scott Morrison said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The issue here fundamentally is about supply.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And it’s little wonder the government dwells so much on this argument. Rising house prices are very popular amongst Australian households, the majority of which are owners. And stamp duties on housing transactions are key sources of income for state governments. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02673037.2015.1044948">Our research</a> found the default position for politicians is to sound concerned about housing affordability, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-policy-is-captive-to-property-politics-so-dont-expect-politicians-to-tackle-affordability-55384">do nothing</a>. </p>
<p>The supply refrain has all the hallmarks of a good policy for a politician. Increasing housing supply – rather than reducing the tax breaks that stimulate excessive demand – is a popular policy with peak property groups. The Property Council has been <a href="http://propertycouncil.com.au/Web/Content/Media_Release/National/2017/New_housing_supply_data_confirm_a_concerning_trend.aspx">saying the same thing for years</a>, so the supply solution has come to sound like fact.</p>
<p>If the supply doesn’t flow or, as is occurring now, doesn’t cool prices, the federal government can blame the states for sluggish planning and land supply without having to put their money where their mouth is. States in turn can blame recalcitrant local governments for blocking housing development and “gold-plating” infrastructure requirements. Since the private sector almost wholly funds and delivers new housing, calling for more of it has been a pretty cheap strategy for government.</p>
<p>It’s true that increasing the supply of new homes in line with population and economic growth is a fundamental part of maintaining a healthy housing system. But to tout new housing production as the only policy lever without examining the question of demand is clearly an ineffective policy position. </p>
<p>The supply argument sounds believable – increasing supply will actually reduce prices in markets for most types of goods, like bananas, cars or televisions. Unfortunately, the housing market is different. </p>
<h2>Why are housing markets different?</h2>
<p>So why is it that despite <a href="https://hia.com.au/%7E/media/HIA%20Website/Files/IndustryBusiness/Economic/discussion%20papers/Dwelling_Unit_Commencements_Australia.ashx">record supply levels</a> in Australia in recent years, prices have continued to rise in <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6416.0">Sydney and Melbourne</a>? We think there are a number of reasons.</p>
<p>New supply is a small fraction of the total stock of dwellings (<a href="http://stat.data.abs.gov.au/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RES_DWEL_ST">about 2% in Australia</a>). Prices are set by the total housing market – most of which already exists in the form of established homes. </p>
<p>Also housing is an unusual good in that as prices increase, demand in the short term actually increases (it’s an asset market). This makes it much more difficult for supply increases to reduce prices. </p>
<p><strong>Increasing prices feeds demand</strong></p>
<p>In most other markets increasing prices both encourage extra supply and reduce demand, so these two key forces are working together – prices in these markets come down sharply when supply increases. In housing markets these two forces are working against each other – the growth of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5609.0">investor demand</a> is simply swamping new supply. </p>
<p>The very low interest rates on offer at the moment are exacerbating this trend.</p>
<p><strong>Developers manage supply</strong></p>
<p>Developers, and the banks that fund development, simply won’t allow supply to get ahead of demand in a way that would put significant downward pressure on prices. Dwelling approvals in Sydney and Melbourne are running way ahead of building starts, but housing projects are released in stages to avoid swamping the market. Since our major banks have the majority of their loan books in <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-banks-are-too-exposed-to-mortgages-but-what-if-the-world-was-flat-31000">retail mortgages</a>, it’s no wonder they avoid funding enough supply to increase their own risk levels.</p>
<h2>How much new supply would improve affordability anyway?</h2>
<p>Even if Australia’s developers and financiers were less cautious, it’s probably not feasible to produce enough supply to really knock prices around when demand is very strong. </p>
<p>For example, prior to the global financial crisis, Ireland – which is about the same size as Sydney, increased supply to 90,000 dwellings per year (Sydney does about 30,000 dwellings per year) <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/5758/AHURI_Final_Report_No255_Housing_markets_economic_productivity_and_risk_international_evidence_and_policy_implications_for_Australia-Volume_2.pdf">and prices still kept rising</a>. It wasn’t the over-supply of homes that caused Irish house prices to fall dramatically but rather the sudden contraction of demand when the global financial crisis hit. </p>
<p>Under more stable conditions, the problem of generating additional housing supply remains. Australia’s prime minister <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2017-02-01/address-national-press-club">has encouraged the states to fix their planning laws</a> to make it easier get housing approvals and building to flow. </p>
<p>But there has been a continuous wave of planning reform over the last 10 years in Australia, and Sydney and Melbourne dwelling approvals are at long-term highs. For example, in 2015-16, Sydney recorded over <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/8731.0Dec%202016?OpenDocument">56,000 new dwelling approvals and Melbourne over 57,000.</a> </p>
<p>In fact, approvals are running at about <a href="http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Research-and-Demography/Research/Housing-Monitor-Reports/Metropolitan-Housing-Monitor-Sydney-Region">double the actual dwelling construction levels</a>, so “fixing” the planning system is unlikely to have much impact on dwelling supply levels.</p>
<p><strong>High-density supply fuels land speculation</strong></p>
<p>Much new supply is in apartments. In the rush to create new supply, some local councils and state governments <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/a-local-council-a-developer-and-an-empty-block-of-land-worth-50m-20170123-gtx2ji.html">have provided bonuses to developers</a> by allowing, at no charge, more apartments on a site. Land owners have seen this behaviour and are likely to increase land prices on the assumption that this will always happen. So, in this case, more supply (through additional apartments) may have actually increased prices not reduced them. </p>
<p><strong>The global ‘financialisation’ of housing</strong></p>
<p>Demand has increased because the focus for many housing investors is now not the cash flow generated by rents but the value of a house as a financial product. For example, at the moment there is continued strong demand for housing by investors despite the fact that apartment rents have started to <a href="http://www.domain.com.au/product/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/DM15679_Domain_Rent_House_Report_December_2016.pdf">decrease in Sydney and are flat in Melbourne</a>. </p>
<p>The internet, and the global real estate market it helps support, enables national and <a href="https://cdn.tspace.gov.au/uploads/sites/79/2016/03/FIRB-AR-2014-15.pdf">international investors</a> to be an increasingly important part of the market. They increase demand pressures in the best-performing (in terms of price growth) cities of Sydney and Melbourne by “soaking” up the new supply. </p>
<p>If politicians were serious about the affordability crisis, they would be trying to support the important but underfunded affordable housing sector. Better targeting tax breaks towards new and affordable rental housing, rather than fuelling demand for existing homes, would also help. But until our politicians can see past supply slogans we can expect very little policy change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Phibbs receives funding from AHURI</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Gurran receives funding from AHURI. </span></em></p>To tout new housing production as the only solution to rising house prices, without examining the question of demand, is an ineffective policy position.Peter Phibbs, Chair of Urban Planning and Policy, University of SydneyNicole Gurran, Professor - Urban and Regional Planning, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/715492017-02-09T19:14:53Z2017-02-09T19:14:53ZShared ownership can help make housing affordable for people with disability<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153810/original/image-20170123-8078-1eaibxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without substantial financial assistance many NDIS participants would struggle to find affordable housing to move into.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is expected to help more people with disability access the support services they need to live independently in the community. But the majority of NDIS participants have low incomes. So, without substantial financial assistance, they <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/2165/AHURI_Final_Report_No246_Moving-to-my-home-housing-aspirations,-transitions-and-outcomes-of-people-with-disability.pdf">struggle to find</a> affordable housing to move into.</p>
<p>In recent years there has been much <a href="https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/media/speeches/Bruce-Bonyhady-Speech-What-will-inclusion-look-like-for-people-with-disability-in-10-years">public policy discussion</a> about shared ownership housing models – also known as shared equity – as part of the solution for this problem.</p>
<h2>What is shared ownership housing?</h2>
<p>Australia has shared ownership housing schemes, although these are <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/2172/AHURI_Final_Report_No137_Innovative-financing-for-homeownership-the-potential-for-shared-equity-initiatives-in-Australia.pdf">uncommon</a>. Most are not specifically tailored for people with disability.</p>
<p>Hundreds of schemes operate overseas. One particular model, Community Land Trusts, is common in the <a href="http://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/what-is-a-clt/about-clts">UK</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/affordable-housing-always/397637/">US</a>. In these models, the property is split between a person and an “equity partner”. </p>
<p>The equity partner is typically the state, or a private or not-for-profit company. The person has the right to occupy the property for as long as they want. The equity partner has no occupancy rights in the property. </p>
<p>There are several variants of shared ownership. The specific rules for each scheme are detailed in a deed between the person, the equity partner and, in some cases, a third party such as a mortgage lender. Differences between schemes can include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>who is registered on the property title and how;</p></li>
<li><p>responsibility for maintenance, insurance, rates and other costs; and</p></li>
<li><p>the procedure for terminating the partnership.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In some schemes, when a person chooses to “exit” shared ownership the property is sold on the open market. The proceeds are then split between the person and equity partner. The person could also choose to buy out the equity partner’s share and enter full home ownership.</p>
<p>In other schemes, the property is never resold on the market. Instead, when a person chooses to terminate the agreement, the equity partner buys out their share. The equity partner then enters a new shared ownership arrangement for this property with another eligible person. </p>
<h2>Benefits of shared ownership</h2>
<p>Shared ownership offers many of the advantages of full home ownership to people who otherwise would not be able to afford it. </p>
<p>Compared to private rental, its main advantage is security of tenure. Secure tenure can help reduce homelessness, which is <a href="https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/hilda/Bibliography/Other_Publications/2012/Beer_etal_Homelessness-and-Disability-FINAL-REPORT-2-2.pdf">prevalent among people with disability</a>. </p>
<p>People can participate in <a href="https://www.ahuri.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/2165/AHURI_Final_Report_No246_Moving-to-my-home-housing-aspirations,-transitions-and-outcomes-of-people-with-disability.pdf">more meaningful ways in their local communities</a> when they know their housing is secure. Secure tenure is also important for people who require <a href="https://www.adhc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/file/0017/304055/4a-Implementing-person-centred-approaches.pdf">expensive home modifications</a> to make their homes more accessible.</p>
<p>Compared to social housing, shared ownership offers an improved sense of ownership and more choices. In social housing, for example, a person with disability might only be offered a tenancy that is located far from their family. In contrast, in shared ownership the person can often choose their preferred property on the open market. </p>
<p>In shared ownership, people with disability make an upfront financial contribution to the purchase of a property. In many cases their family contributes to that cost to make it financially possible for the person to participate in this option. This co-contribution reduces the cost for government, so more people in need can be assisted. </p>
<p>If the property value rises, both the person and the equity partner benefit financially.</p>
<h2>Risks</h2>
<p>The major risk in shared ownership is the exposure to mortgage debt. In the case of a property market downturn, shared owners could find themselves locked into a mortgage that is bigger than their asset’s value.</p>
<p>Another risk is that people can be contractually obliged to pay for major repairs they cannot afford.</p>
<p>Also, compared to rental leases that can be terminated at relatively short notice, moving out of a shared ownership arrangement can be more difficult. </p>
<p>Shared ownership models are also complex, diverse and not well understood by consumers, lenders and policymakers. There is a risk people will receive poor advice about the suitability of shared ownership for their specific circumstances. </p>
<h2>Can it help close the gap?</h2>
<p>Shared ownership is by no means a panacea for the shortage of affordable housing. Like other housing options, it too remains out of reach for most people with low incomes. But expanding supply in Australia could help some people with disability who can make a financial contribution enter secure, affordable housing.</p>
<p>Some shared ownership models – such as Housing Choices Australia’s <a href="http://www.housingchoices.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Mixed_Equity_brochure.pdf">mixed equity program</a> – would be viable for low-income people with disability who cannot service a mortgage, but whose families can assist with the upfront contribution. <a href="http://www.communityhousing.org.au/S8-sharedHO_docs/Doors%20to%20Ownership.pdf">Other models</a> would be viable for people with moderate but secure incomes who can manage a small mortgage.</p>
<p>For those who enter shared ownership, there are many benefits but also substantial risks. Alternative solutions are still necessary for those who could not afford shared ownership, or have other preferences.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Ilan Wiesel is presenting his research findings at the 10th <a href="http://ahrc2017.com.au/">Australasian Housing Researchers Conference</a> (AHRC) hosted by RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research (CUR), with the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University, from February 15-17 at RMIT University in Melbourne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilan Wiesel has received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and nongovernment organisations concerned with housing and disability.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen R Fisher receives funding from the Australian Research Council, state and federal governments and nongovernment organisations concerned with disability and mental health policies. </span></em></p>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.Ilan Wiesel, Lecturer in Urban Geography, The University of MelbourneKaren R Fisher, Professor, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.