What Role Can Social Housing Play in Tackling Australia’s Housing Crisis?

Australia has a well-informed public debate on housing, but neglects the role that social housing could play in improving housing outcomes. This may be attributable to the attachment to the Australian Dream of suburban homeownership. However, this model is weakened, and there is no realistic prospect of it being fixed. This public lecture utilises interviews with 12 social housing providers in three states and two national experts to examine the state of social housing. It identifies a sense of acute crisis; a lack of capacity in both public and community provider sectors; frustrations with the operation of otherwise welcome federal schemes; and problems arising from government structures, notably the weakness of local government and planning and federal-state relations. It argues for enabling public housing departments to utilise their asset bases and for ownership of public housing under community provider management to be transferred to enhance their asset base. Commonwealth Rent Assistance should be extended to public tenants and public housing should be placed under the same regulatory framework as community providers. Inclusionary zoning should become routine. A back-to-basics review of Commonwealth-state responsibilities should seek to address weaknesses in governance. Finally, eligibility should be widened to broaden support for social housing.