A construction worker uses a boom lift to move a piece of construction equipment at the site of an affordable housing project in Ottawa in September 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
Community housing is not a silver bullet to Canada’s housing crisis. But a strong community housing sector can play a significant role in providing all Canadians with the right to adequate housing.
Rent assistance can ease rental stress, but it won’t help low-income earners find secure and affordable housing when it’s in such short supply, nor stop disadvantage being concentrated in some areas.
While the Productivity Commission’s critique of the national housing agreement is justified, its faith in the market is not. The Albanese government is right to invest in building social housing.
The shortfall of social housing has built up over decades. Even after the building program is complete, the gap between housing supply and the numbers on waiting lists will still be huge.
The pandemic has brought to a head deep-rooted problems with how housing is provided in Australia. Fortunately, the solutions can play a central role in the national recovery process.
A home, a springboard, or a safety net? New research finds a surprisingly large number of Australians have lived in social housing since 2000, using it in several very different ways.
Morrison government assistant minister Luke Howarth argues that finding jobs for people in social housing will help free up dwellings for other people on the waiting list.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Helping tenants find work supposedly creates a pathway into private rental housing, freeing up social housing for others. Private rental costs and the situations of many tenants make that unrealistic.
The evidence shows permanent housing, like the Fitzroy housing estate, is the best and most cost-effective way to reduce homelessness.
Kate Shaw
It’s time to tackle the shortage of public housing head-on, rather than skirt around the problem. Public housing is the single most cost-effective way to turn around the rise in homelessness.
Governments have been more focused on managing waiting lists than heeding calls to invest in increasing the stock of social housing.
Josh Dye/AAP
The need to manage long waiting lists for social housing, rather than serving the best interests of tenants and prospective tenants, is a major driver of policymakers’ approach.
Policies focused on ownership do little to help lower-income households that are struggling to pay the rent.
Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock
The policy focus remains on home ownership, but a new survey shows slight improvements in affordability do little to help people on low incomes. Their plight calls for better social housing policy.
The extra $1 billion Premier Gladys Berejiklian (left) and Social Housing Minister Pru Goward say will be ‘harnessed’ for social housing is actually Commonwealth Rent Assistance for which tenants transferred to community housing providers become eligible.
Simon Bullard/AAP
For the first time a state government housing agency has effectively contracted out all its operations in some regions, but will this improve and add to the total social housing stock?
Labor leader Bill Shorten has announced a policy based on a solid principle of fairness, but with a second-best model of delivering social housing.
Julian Smith/AAP
Labor has made a substantial commitment to tackling inequality in Australia, but has taken a second-best approach to overcoming the huge shortfall of social housing.
Caggara House in Brisbane caters for low-income residents aged 55 and over who previously lived alone in state-owned houses that were too big for their needs.
UDIA Qld/Facebook
Much of the innovation in providing social housing is coming from community housing providers around the country. And it’s desperately needed given the state of housing inequality in Australia.
There’s never been enough funding to ensure affordable housing for those who need it.
from shutterstock.com
Another affordable housing pact between the Commonwealth, states and territories came into effect this month. But with no new funding, the agreement may be different from predecessors in name only.
The government’s £163m fund would provide much-needed boost for community-led housing organisations – but it might also take away their control over new developments.
A homeless man sleeps on a tram shelter bench on Batman Avenue, Melbourne, 1990s.
William Bowers/Museums Victoria
When the city centre was revitalised in the 1990s, homeless people were pushed out. With homelessness rising today, it’s important to recognise the links between urban development and displacement.
Exordium Apartments at Zetland, built by City West Housing, provide affordable, high-quality housing to key workers within the City of Sydney.
Alan Morris
If local government is to deliver affordable housing, state and federal governments must assist. Even councils as powerful and well resourced as the City of Sydney cannot do it by themselves.
Signs of homelessness are becoming more visible.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
A decade after the launch of a national campaign to reduce homelessness, the latest figures show Australia is going backwards. Research points to problems in the public housing system as a key factor.
The argument that stronger supply will deliver more affordable housing isn’t borne out in areas where new unit and apartment construction is booming.
Joel Carrett/AAP
The clichés about housing supply and regulatory restraints are distractions from the need to focus on expanding the affordable housing sector to directly meet the needs of low-income households.
The Living Space development in Cockburn, Western Australia, has won praise as an innovative mixed-use social housing project.
Courtesy of HHA Projects
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, and Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney