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.
Brisbane rents are up nearly 50% more than the national average and homelessness in Queensland is increasing at the fastest rate in the country. The state can take several steps to turn things around.
In a housing crisis, publicly owned land should never be sold to private developers and should instead be used to build the kind of housing the market is unwilling and unable to build.
Elderly long-term renters are facing the very real risk of homelessness as skyrocketing rents encourage landlords to sell.
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The $10 billion fund will provide only $450 million for social housing per year, and less when markets turn down, but such funds can make financial sense.
Workers prepare to install new water pipes in Walnut Creek, California, on April 22, 2021.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
It will cost tens of billions of dollars to find and remove all the lead service lines that deliver water to US homes and schools. A public health expert explains why he sees it as money well spent.
The Grattan Institute is proposing a $20 billion fund managed by the Future Fund Board of Guardians which, if matched by the states, would fund 6,000 new places per year.
In raising rents from social to affordable for council tenants, the cost burden for tackling the housing crisis effectively falls on those most in need.
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The government has long promoted the idea that we can build our way out of the housing crisis. Startling numbers of empty homes suggest the problem isn’t one of scarcity but affordability
One quarter of monitored social housing properties recorded winter temperatures below World Health Organisation standards for more than 80% of winter, new research shows.
Aboriginal housing policies should be developed and implemented in close consultation with individual Aboriginal communities.
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The recently announced $250 million NSW budget boost for housing for Aboriginal people, is much-needed. It’s critical this well-intentioned investment does not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Victorian homelessness inquiry chair Fiona Patten: ‘We need to be smarter about where we direct our efforts.’
James Ross/AAP
JobKeeper, the COVID boost to JobSeeker, and moratoriums on rent increases and evictions all ended this month. Only smarter policies will prevent homelessness, as a landmark Victorian report explains.
More people than expected needed help, and the states have found stable housing for less than a third of rough sleepers who were put up in hotels. A hands-off federal government simply isn’t helping.
In both London and Liverpool – two extremes of Britain’s polarised housing market – activists have been busy re-imagining the future of public 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 redevelopment of public housing and the introduction of private accommodation can leave the original tenants feeling worried they’ll be living in a neighbourhood they hardly recognise.
The Albert Street public housing in North Melbourne.
David Crosling/AAP
Ghettos of crime, drugs and vice? Full of people bludging off the state? That’s typical of the unfair stigma attached to public housing, and it distracts us from more fundamental issues.
PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, and Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University