A SHIFT in policy focus away from promoting and subsidising home ownership, more social housing and regulation of Australia’s private rental sector are among a raft of measures required for the role of housing to be “critically rethought”, and prevent even worse housing outcomes for the more than three million Australians living in poverty.
These are among the findings of a new report undertaken for AHURI by researchers from UNSW and Swinburne University of Technology, released during Anti-Poverty Week which is running from 15th to 27th October.
“Housing plays a substantive role in experiences of poverty. Housing costs can increase the effects of poverty, and make it more difficult to address its causes,” the report said.
“To effectively address poverty in Australia, the role of housing must be critically rethought. This may involve explicitly shifting the current focus on scarcity-based policy modes to values-based policy-making, such as universal and rights-based approaches.
“Housing must be recognised as both a contributor and mediator of poverty. Concurrently, direct and indirect interventions can be geared toward poverty alleviation.”
Social housing was highlighted as traditionally the “most important intervention” to address housing-related poverty, providing tenants with affordable, secure accommodation and other non-shelter benefits in a way that private rental does not. Light regulation of Australia’s private rental sector exposes tenants to high direct and indirect costs, perpetuating poverty.
“However, Australia’s social housing system is constrained on multiple fronts, and a growing number of households experiencing poverty rent privately.”
At the federal level, the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) will deliver 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes in the fund’s first five years, including 4,000 homes for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence or older women at risk of homelessness. That was given an immediate boost by the federal government’s $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator split across the states and territories following HAFF negotiations with the Greens.
State government programs include Victoria’s $5.3 billion “Big Housing Build”.
The report called for increasing direct government funding, and NHFIC finance, in social and affordable housing capital expenditure and to address the mismatch between social housing costs and revenue.
According to the report, a concentration of policies promoting and subsidising home ownership is one of the factors driving the role housing plays in Australian experiences of poverty. These include preferential treatment of owner occupied housing in the tax and transfer system that results in elevated house prices that benefit existing owners, first home buyer assistance supports such as cash grants, stamp duty exemptions and loan guarantees, and tax concessions such as negative gearing for buyers of investment properties.
“The extent of social housing divestment is such that there has been negligible—or negative—growth in stock levels across all Australian jurisdictions. This has occurred while demand has continued to increase.”
The report said recent research shows that this “persistent shortfall in social housing supply is now accepted as inevitable” and has “perpetuated the residualisation of the sector through further restricting eligibility and left unassisted an increasing number of people who need housing assistance”.
Meanwhile, residential tenancy laws in Australia do not regulate rents for affordability and allow landlords to readily terminate tenancies. State governments have moved to act, with recent responses from Victoria. The report called for tenancy law reform, particularly to regulate rents to affordable levels, improve tenant security of tenure and address problems, including legal ambiguities, regarding dwelling living conditions.
The AHURI report highlighted that the location of housing available to people on low incomes is often only in areas that are distant from transport corridors and essential services.
“These areas may also have fewer public transport options and less frequent services, resulting in increased travel times and a greater reliance on cars. These factors can significantly increase costs for households that are already experiencing poverty.”
Mandatory inclusionary zoning across all markets was recommended by the report.
Setting minimum standards on the built quality of private rental properties would greatly improve the quality of life of renters and reduce their operating expenditure.
A policy agenda that specifically pursues societal well-being could include housing and homelessness targets, noting that Australia can draw on the existing well-being agendas of New Zealand, Scotland and Wales.
Investments in evidence should continue to be made across housing tenures, age cohorts and socio-cultural groups, including evidence informed by values-based policy and human rights.
