Based on research comparing projects across the country, a new assessment tool calculates cost-effective ways to fund affordable housing to meet specified needs in different markets.
Nurses who care for people in the city can’t afford a property anywhere near their place of work.
didesign021/Shutterstock
People on moderate incomes, including police and emergency workers, have been forced to seek housing on the city fringes, far from their places of work. But there are ways to reverse this trend.
Over the past year, there has been a surge of enthusiasm in Australia for developing a sector of large-scale institutional landlords.
AAP/David Crosling
There is a risk that affordable housing policy may be colonised by for-profit interests if Australia imports the wrong rental housing ideas from overseas.
Flatpack housing in Gateshead, UK.
Owen Humphreys/PA Archive/PA Images
Mass production with a touch of customisation could be the best future for affordable homes.
Thousands of co-housing projects in cities around the world have shown how people can get together to create diverse homes that suit them and their community – this one is in Portland, Oregon.
Kevin Turner/flickr
City residents all around the world are getting together to create housing tailored to their needs and budgets, instead of being developed for maximum profit.
Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar has confirmed investments in affordable housing will be backed by a government guarantee.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Australian government has at last taken the lead in affordable housing policy with a package of measures that should attract institutional investors hungry for low-risk returns.
A real estate sold sign hangs in front of a west-end Toronto property. Canada’s newly announced housing strategy contains scant measures to help first-time buyers in pricey markets.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy
Canada’s National Housing Strategy leaves a large segment of the population that must find a way to afford housing in the private market. More initiatives are needed to help first-time home buyers.
Unless governments tackle the housing affordability crisis, the poorest Australians will fall further behind.
AAP
Rising housing costs are hurting low-income Australians the most. The gap in home ownership between rich and poor is widening, house prices are rising fastest at the bottom and rental stress is rising.
A homeless man sleeping rough in the city. More and more older people will be homeless on current trends.
flickr
The rising number of older Australians is exposing the shortage of housing options and services to meet their needs, putting them at increasing risk of homelessness.
Australia got in first with restrictions on foreign investors in housing, but Jacinda Arden’s new government plans to go further.
Daniel Munoz/AAP
Concerns about foreign investors driving up housing prices have been growing. Australia was first to bar foreign purchases of existing residential property, but New Zealand is set to go further.
State premiers like Gladys Berejiklian need to have a much sharper policy focus on delivering social and affordable housing.
David Moir/AAP
Yet again the evidence shows supply is no cure-all for affordable housing. All levels of government in Australia need to concentrate on housing for low-income renters in particular.
A living room rented by the minute and another room shared for sleeping – the age of the ‘distributed’ home is upon us.
Ziferblat
So you’re having to room share to live in the city. What if you need more than a place to sleep? Well, now you can rent a living room by the minute. Welcome to the world of distributed living.
The Ballarat Road project in Maidstone and Footscray, Melbourne, will transform vacant land into housing for people at risk of homelessness.
Schored Architects
An innovative collaboration between government, a non-profit group and philanthropists has found a way to provide urgently needed housing on land that would otherwise be left vacant for years.
For many Americans, there is no such thing as affordable housing in today’s real estate market.
Aleutie/Shutterstock.com
Slashing government spending on housing and scrapping a key financing option for new units would make it harder than ever for low-income Americans to keep a roof over their heads.
Older women valued a secure private space of their own with, ideally, a small garden.
Jacob Lund/shutterstock
Finding secure affordable housing is a problem for older women across Australia. But new research finds women in regional areas have different priorities from those in the cities.
The Living Space development in Cockburn, Western Australia, has won praise as an innovative mixed-use social housing project.
Courtesy of HHA Projects
City living costs are driving people to organise themselves to share a room with strangers. These precarious living arrangements hardly qualify as a home.
Housing policymaking hasn’t gone smoothly since Tony Abbott sidelined the experts by scrapping the National Housing Supply Council in 2013.
Alan Porritt/AAP
Unaffordable housing and homelessness are burning issues. Policymaking has suffered from a critical lack of data and expert input since the National Housing Supply Council was axed in 2013.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University