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New research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reveals how the country has fallen behind on the social housing requirements needed by a growing population.
As of June 2022, there were 418,400 households in the four main social housing programs: public housing, community housing, state owned and managed Indigenous housing, and Indigenous community housing. This is just 39,800 more than 14 years prior, in 2008.
Between 2011 and 2022, the proportion of households living in social housing in Australia decreased from 4.8 per cent to 4.1 per cent, as the need for housing failed to keep pace with population growth.
As of 2022, 286,000 households (68 per cent of social housing) were in public housing, 102,600 households (25 per cent) were in community housing, 13,500 households (3.2 per cent) were in state owned and managed Indigenous housing, and 16,300 households (3.9 per cent) were in Indigenous community housing. Between 2006 and 2022, the number of public housing dwellings available to Australian residents actually decreased by 43,800.
National housing campaign Everybody’s Home warns that as bad as the housing crisis appears now, it will get worse unless the government drastically ramps up its provision of social housing.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said the government should be looking to build 25,000 social homes each year to end the shortfall and tackle rental stress.
“Every year, we are getting further behind on social housing. With sky-high need and long waiting lists, it’s not hard to see how we ended up in this housing crisis,” Ms Azize said.
“Our social housing shortfall is massive. Australia needs 640,000 homes for people experiencing homelessness and extreme housing stress. But these numbers show that the shortfall is getting worse, not better.
“With so many people in extreme housing stress, competition for rentals is fierce. We need the federal government to step up and make a plan to end the social housing shortfall,” Ms Azize said.
Moreover, the report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealed that almost one in two people who received Commonwealth Rent Assistance in 2022 were still in rental stress after getting the payment.
“Commonwealth Rental Assistance is leaving people behind. People on the lowest incomes are not eligible for help – only one in three people on JobSeeker can get the payment and those who do are still in rental stress,” Ms Azize said.
“The recent increase to the payment must be followed by a plan to fix it so that it goes to people who need it and keeps them out of rental stress,” she added.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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