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- Australia is on the verge of a social housing crisis, with a projected deficit of more than 200,000 houses by 2031, a new report claims
- To meet the demand, the report says the Federal Government needs to be involved as state governments are ill-equipped to handle the situation
- The report says over the next decade state and territories are planning to build 66,000 social houses, well below the reports estimated need of 200,000
- “The Commonwealth insists social housing is a state responsibility, but that arrangement isn’t working,” report co-author Martin Kennedy says
Australia is on the verge of a social housing crisis, with a projected deficit of more than 200,000 houses by 2031 unless the Federal Government invests immediately, a new report claims.
According to a new analysis from Compass Housing Services, state governments have little capacity to place individuals on waiting lists and no capacity to meet future demand.
David Adamson from the University of Adelaide, the report’s lead author, said that despite their best intentions, the states had lost control of the situation, which was now too huge for them to handle, with 196,000 additional social housing units needed by 2031.
“Over the next decade the states and territories are planning to build just 66,000 social housing properties,” Professor Adamson said. “Even if they hit their targets, they will have undershot the existing level of demand by 60 per cent, or more than 100,000 homes.
“If you include the additional demand from population growth over the period in question the shortfall increases to more than 196,000 homes.”
The difficulties affecting the social housing sector, according to report co-author Martin Kennedy, are part of a larger housing crisis that has been developing for 30 years.
“Home ownership rates have collapsed, the share of renters in housing stress is increasing and social housing waiting lists are out of control,” he said.
“The Commonwealth insists social housing is a state responsibility, but that arrangement isn’t working.
“If we keep expecting the states to fix a problem that is clearly beyond them, an increasing proportion of the population will experience socially damaging levels of inequality and financial hardship.”
A new report from the Real Estate Institute of Australia shows that the weighted average proportion of income required to meet loan repayments increased from 27.2 per cent to 35.7 per cent over the past 20 years.
A household spending over 30 per cent of their income on housing is typically classed as in housing stress.
Kate Colvin, the national spokesperson for Everybody’s Home, stated that federal involvement was necessary.
“The federal-state blame game is arid and gets us nowhere,” she said.
“A ballooning number of Australians on low and middle incomes simply cannot compete for housing in the booming private sales and rental market. We need a breakthrough in co-operation quickly, otherwise Australia will confront a social catastrophe.
“State governments simply do not have the fiscal firepower to build enough social housing. Unless the Federal Government steps up, homelessness services and other health and welfare services will be overwhelmed.”
