"Realising a vision for the community housing sector in Western Australia" - presentation by Michael Lennon, Chief Executive Officer, Housing Choices Australia
The presentation describes the current environment for social housing in Australia. It discusses the UK social Housing experience, and asks how relevant this is to Australia. Roles and responsibilities under the design of the UK and Australian systems are compared. Emerging opportunities are identified, and the role regulation could play in developing the social housing sector. Finally, the presentation offers some early priorities for policy. Download the presentation
"Social Housing: Questions of Balance" - presentation by Clive Attwater, SGS Director
If the objective is to grow social housing, how do we get the biggest ‘bang for the buck? And how do we measure the ‘bang" - more dwellings per government dollar, or making the most change in peoples' lives that reduces disadvantage? Several concepts are relevant, including housing stress benchmarks, efficiency, the ‘total cost of abode', and leverage. There are reasons to suggest community housing should be catering for low to moderate income households to generate leverage, even when very low income groups remain on waiting lists. Such an approach would achieve better social mix and wider economic benefits, for instance providing for key worker housing. Download the presentation
"Social Housing in Australia: The imperative for change after decades of policy drift and institutional inertia" - presentation by Dr Marcus Spiller, SGS Director.
The role social housing has been expected to play has changed markedly since 1946, reflecting wider shifts in the nation's social and economic development. Originally envisaged as ultimately constituting a mainstream housing tenure, social housing, including community housing, progressively became residualised and regarded as the housing tenure of last resort. Another challenge lies in reforming institutional arrangements for the delivery of social housing, which have changed very little over time. Download the presentation