Social and affordable rental housing shortages across Australia mean that many households are paying far more rent than they can afford.
Many are being pushed towards homelessness. At the same time, much of our existing social housing is in poor condition, fails to meet basic energy standards and lacks climate resilience, making it expensive to run for both renters and housing providers.
In CHIA’s national federal election platform released (link) this week, we are calling on all parties to develop a long-term national housing strategy and commit to directly investing in the construction of 25,000 new social and affordable rental homes annually.
We are also calling for a national build-to-rent-to-buy program to enable lower-income households to move from social and affordable rental housing into home ownership and to work with state and territory governments to establish a national climate resilience fund to support retrofitting or renewal of poorly performing/located social housing.
Effectively tackling these complex problems is challenging. But with the political will to do so, and guided by a long-term national housing strategy, the challenges are not insurmountable.