Tenants, government and Indigenous/intermediary organisations assume a diversity of responsibilities and are often seeking different tenancy outcomes. Despite differences however, there is evidence of a recognition space occurring. Culturally-based values and practices significantly affect the ability of Indigenous tenants to comply with social housing tenancy conditions (the rules) and to achieve and maintain tenancies. Some housing officers are more flexible in frontline practice to support tenants more fully. State Housing Authorities (SHAs) are administering new policies that require greater responsibility from the tenants. Comprehensive and rigid policy application across a diverse range of contexts can be counter-productive, preventing the development of a productive recognition space. This research supports the need for more devolution to intermediary organisations and frontline workers, in order to develop local implementation plans and mutually agreed measures.
This project examined residential investment vehicles introduced overseas to encourage investment in rental properties. It explored the opportunity to develop an effective residential investment vehicle in Australia oriented to enhance the supply of affordable rental properties. The project analysed potential options for an effective property investment vehicle in affordable housing. This involved considering how the product might be strategically positioned, whether the fund should be listed or unlisted, whether the fund portfolio should involve a mix of assets, and what should be the balance between risk and return. A vehicle was proposed and its performance was estimated using financial modelling. The project finds that Australian residential property is an effective investment asset class with strong long-run risk-adjusted returns as well as portfolio diversification benefits. Unlisted wholesale residential property funds are the most appropriate model for attracting large-scale investment in residential property in Australia (especially affordable housing investment) since they require a significant minimum investment with low debt levels, tend to be less volatile and more stable in investment returns (similar to appetite of institutional investors in superannuation funds). An unlisted wholesale residential fund is proposed for the Australian context. Performance and portfolio analysis suggest that the proposed unlisted property fund offers a moderate risk-adjusted return (higher than for stocks and Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (A-REITs)), and also reduced risk effectively demonstrating its value for institutional investors. There is also (weak) evidence to support it being an effective residential investment vehicle in marginally enhancing returns and diversifying risk over the full risk spectrum. Key enabling strategies to deliver such an investment vehicle and obtain investor acceptance include: providing ongoing support from the sponsor (i.e. housing operators), housing industry and governments; selecting a fund manager with a good track record; effectively promoting to targeted institutional investors and superannuation funds/property fund managers; and introducing a liquidity protocol to enable entry and exit. This report suggests that there are good opportunities to structure affordable housing into an effective property investment vehicle attractive to superannuation funds in Australia, particularly those with a strong Corporate Social Responsibility mandate. Unlisted wholesale residential property funds were identified as the most suitable investment vehicle. Implementation challenges relate to commitment and buy in from policy makers and other stakeholders including community housing providers. Policy makers could help facilitate their emergence by: reshaping policy settings on taxation to encourage the development of unlisted wholesale affordable housing funds; promoting the idea of the fund and attract long term investors; and supporting the housing industry in benchmarking the performance of residential property, especially affordable housing.
The study examines whether the diminishing supply of affordable housing options for lower income central city workers is having an impact on central city businesses and on the overall productivity of those economies.
The research examined the impact of programs providing social housing with support for people experiencing homelessness under the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness (NPAH).
This study confirmed that existing official performance measures of Australia’s social housing services are inadequate to measure efficiency and effectiveness. Working closely with six larger community housing providers and two public housing providers, the research team developed and trialled a new performance framework. This involved collecting data for social housing expenditure, conducting workshops with managers and staff, and surveying recent tenants. The researchers found the proposed framework be immediately applicable for large community housing providers. Public housing providers encountered more obstacles in applying the model, including specifying boundaries of housing management, and capturing back office costs. An advantage of the new framework is that it seeks to capture all aspects of the work of social housing providers from providing efficient and effective tenancy and property management services through to enhancing tenants’ welfare and quality of life. For example, across the community housing case studies, 81 per cent of management outlay went to tenancy and property management, and only 19 per cent on individual support or tenant and community services. Nevertheless, the study also showed that case study community housing providers were more able to support their tenants to reduce rent arrears and tenancy complaints, and explore ‘place management’ and community development activities compared to larger public housing agencies. It also highlighted that few public and community housing staff felt they could prioritise employment or training opportunities for tenants. The study also suggested improvements to outcome measures. For example, the key indicator of tenant outcomes in social housing is tenancy sustainment, but this could be improved by limiting its focus to ‘at risk’ tenancies. Similarly, present indicators of tenant employment outcomes could be improved by limiting measurement to those that are ‘work capable’ (factors, e.g. disabilities and pregnancy contribute to social housing access but bias employment participation downwards). Robust information on efficiency and effectiveness of social housing is essential for public accountability. The framework and metrics proposed in this study offer a way forward and, despite challenges in implementation in the public sector, would illuminate public debates around subsidy of social housing, and could be implemented with government leadership and coordination.
This report examined the notion of an efficient housing market and identified key indicators of housing system efficiency, responsiveness, and risk. It examined implications of particular housing supply settings and outcomes to understand economic productivity and participation at regional and local scales. This study was based on the views of an expert Investigative Panel composed of international scholars, Australian industry experts and industry leaders, as well as policy officers and practitioners from Commonwealth, state and local governments.
The effect of house prices on households’ financial decisions has been an important question facing researchers and policy-makers. Increases in house prices may lead households to take on additional debt, refinance an existing mortgage, or change the composition of the debt held. Studies of labour supply have also found significant changes in work patterns due to house price movements. Labour force participation and hours of work decisions have been found to be sensitive to households’ housing tenure and their age. To inform the development of policy in Australia, empirical evidence is needed to confirm the importance of these relationships, and to gauge the magnitudes of the effects. This research uses the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) dataset, 2001–2012. The analysis exploits the longitudinal nature of the survey and the rich information on households and individuals available in the data. In particular, every four years, respondents in the survey are asked detailed questions about their holdings of assets and liabilities. We supplement the HILDA data with a panel of local government area house price data collected by Residential Property Data. The longitudinal nature of HILDA provides an opportunity to examine the dynamics of labour supply, household debt and the borrowing behaviour of Australian households. The study examines these questions by using panel data and cross-sectional econometric models.
This research explores Australian private rental brokerage programs which provide assistance in securing and sustaining private rental tenancies for disadvantaged tenants. The research identifies a diverse range of activities tailored to individuals and local circumstances, but lacking common terminology, measures and reporting making it difficult to assess the overall success of these programs beyond specific program outcomes.
KEY POINTS Of key importance for this project is its research methodology as it is the first to combine housing and labour market data with Journey’s Home survey data. It developed three models to examine the probability of entry into and exits from homelessness. Men are prone to higher rates of homelessness. They are more likely to become homeless and less likely to exit homelessness. Individuals who are married or in a de facto relationship are less likely to enter homelessness but if they do, there is a significantly lower likelihood of escape. Long-term ill-health issues do not affect people’s likelihood of entering homelessness. People diagnosed with mental health issues have lower risk of entering homelessness and higher chance of exiting homelessness. Drinking and drug taking at risky levels, and recent incarceration raises the chances of entering homelessness, as does a previous spell of homelessness. These personal characteristics correlate with a higher risk of becoming and remaining homeless irrespective of the condition of local housing and labour markets.
The private rental sector has grown significantly and is now home to more than 1.8 million Australian households. This growth has been linked to higher demand from households who are taking longer to save for a house deposit, as well as more strictly rationed public housing. Despite this growth, the tenure remains insecure: weak regulation and investors’ pursuit of capital gains has led to more rapid turnover of properties, increasing problems of forced mobility for tenants. The project sought to understand the vulnerabilities of tenants in this context, discerning the effects of critical life events and housing shocks. It involved interviewing 76 low to moderate-income tenants living in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth about their housing experiences, as well as interviewing practitioners to identify emerging types of support for tenants. Two key groups of low to moderate-income tenants emerged: those who have experienced multiple types of adverse life events for whom there can be extreme difficulties in attaining leases and maintaining cash flow; and a new or previously unidentified group who require assistance to manage a key event or transition (e.g. recently arrived migrants). A negative relationship exists between the number of critical life events experienced by low to moderate-income tenants, and the resources they have at hand to manage them. As the number of critical life events experienced rises, larger proportions of tenants require drastic action to raise emergency funds. They are more likely to require assistance from friends or family, less likely to have savings of any kind, and more likely to not be able to pay their rental costs on time. In Australia, Commonwealth funded Rental Assistance (RA) is a key support for private renter households in need. However, this study suggested RA is inadequate when critical life events occur or insurances are exhausted. Governments might, through appropriate local services like medical, legal or migrant support centres, improve knowledge about the rental market, provide bond assistance or payments to meet temporary cash flow difficulties, and help broker households into private rental housing. They might also better regulate the sector to address poor housing standards and predatory landlords.
Recent reforms in the disability sector through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will allocate funding to individuals who will be able to exercise greater control over its use. More people with disabilities will be able to access support to move from congregate care, group homes, their parents’ home or unstable housing to more independent living arrangements. The researchers analysed ABS data and interviewed staff of disability and housing agencies. They also interviewed people with disabilities—most with individualised funding packages—who moved, or planned to live more independently in the community. Interviews were conducted in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Reasons for moving home were varied, but many wanted to live independently in housing that met their preferences for design and location. A key barrier they faced was lack of affordable housing. Those that had succeeded in accessing social housing had done so through special programs, or by being classified at risk of homelessness. Those achieving ownership received family financial support or utilised shared equity arrangements. Those in private rental had established relationships with landlords. Sharing was also a feature in private rental and ownership options. Where people with disabilities had been able to move to preferred housing in a suitable location (close to family, public transport and services), they experienced positive outcomes such as feelings of independence, social participation, and improvements in physical and mental health. Those in social housing experienced more secure and affordable tenancies, while those owning their own homes (including shared equity arrangements) experienced pride and sense of security. Those in private rental, by contrast, were less secure and experienced affordability stress. Detailed housing policies and strategies will be needed to respond to the NDIS. New supplies of affordable housing are a priority, but so also is adaptable design to enable people with disabilities to age in place. Home sharing is a useful strategy to pool support funding and would improve overall utilisation of housing stock, but provisions to enable people to choose flatmates and preserve privacy will be important. The study highlights the benefits of choice and flexibility in funding, but also recognises that strategies will also need to integrate sufficient advocacy, information and tenancy management assistance to prepare and support people into new living arrangements. Separate program funding to build capacity in formal and informal support networks will also be required.
Policy-makers have long understood the relationship between housing and the economy through the multiplier effects of housing investment on national income and employment. There has, in contrast, been little regard to the longer term productivity and growth impacts of housing. Housing advocates and policy-makers usually focus on the social dimensions of housing. This scoping study reviewed evidence of links between housing and productivity in order to understand how housing processes and outcomes impact economic growth in Australia. The researchers sought out national and international evidence on how housing shapes growth from the fields of economics, housing, planning and local economic development. They also examined metropolitan and local area plans and strategies in Western Australia and Victoria to see whether practitioners had developed ways of connecting housing and economic development. More than 100 planning documents were assessed, and interviews carried out with eighteen policy-makers in twelve illustrative areas.
This study utilized the first 11 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) Survey to track individuals’ tenure transitions and housing affordability dynamics over the period 2001–11. The study used the widely recognized definition of ‘housing affordability stress’, where an individual’s housing costs exceed 30 per cent of their equivalised income and their income leaves them in the bottom 40 per cent of the household income distribution. This study confirmed previous findings that relatively few Australians slip into housing affordability stress if they at first enter affordable housing, and if they fall into stress, most escape quickly. Over a 10-year period, only around 21 per cent of Australians slip into housing affordability stress (‘stress’) after being in affordable housing, and 73 per cent of Australians experiencing stress escape within a year. However, some Australians have problematic experiences—defined as ‘dynamic affordability stress’. These individuals experience difficulty in rebounding into affordable housing, relapse back into stress even if escape is at first achieved; or experience episodic recurrences of stress. Susceptible groups include migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds, low-income home purchasers or households with dependent children. Falling into housing affordability stress is on average equally due to labour market factors (e.g. reduced income or unemployment) as housing factors (increased housing costs), but exiting stress is more commonly linked to increased income. This suggests that policies to boost employment participation and supplements to income might assist most in helping low-income groups make more permanent exits from stress. Macroeconomic conditions also matter, with vulnerability to dynamic affordability stress higher post-GFC controlling for all other factors, and the odds of a bounce back into affordable housing 44 per cent lower than before the GFC. This suggests that moving out of stress after the GFC has been harder. Both Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) and public housing still play important roles in preventing stress, however, there is evidence to show the effectiveness of CRA has declined and the affordability of public housing might be eroded with recent policy proposals to impose market rents.
Supportive housing is a package of assistance for tenants to address health and other needs as well as sustaining affordable tenancies, mostly in social housing. Some supportive housing is provided in a congregate (single) site context, but some providers use housing scattered across multiple locations with support provided through outreach workers. Tenants typically are highly vulnerable because of life experiences, such as trauma and dysfunctional families. The project used a mix of methods including a survey of over 100 tenants in scattered-site and single-site supportive housing, and qualitative interviews with both tenants and tenancy and support providers in single-site supportive housing. Support, in all the forms it assumed, was not fundamentally about support providers doing practical things for the tenant. Rather it was a practice mechanism for tenants to take greater control over the day-to-day functioning of their own lives. Providers sought to: improve habits and behaviours (e.g. being a good neighbour, keeping one’s property clean, paying rent, etc); foster responsibility and independent living skills that would last beyond supportive housing; and empower and normalise tenants with the goal to enable tenants to become functional and then to access normal housing. Tenants of supportive housing were expected to, and often did, play roles in constructing the nature of support, especially in single site housing. An important factor in recovery from homelessness and other problems was to develop informal networks of support by neighbours, however, networks and socialising among neighbours could also undermine recovery efforts and contribute to or exacerbate personal problems. Tenants described making a diverse range of life improvements and also attributed their positive life changes to the support they received. Key to this was the security and stability afforded to tenants because of the long-term nature of the housing provided, and many were able to sustain housing for at least 18 months. Its effectiveness and desirability was also due to its safety (many tenants had prior experiences of violence, intimidation and danger). Supportive housing, be it single-site or scattered-site, is also more effective when it is a practical resource to address problems, when barriers to access support are removed, and when support is sufficiently broad to make opportunities available for tenants to exercise choices. It is also effective when tenure arrangements offer security so that tenants are provided opportunities to improve their lives and leave on their own terms.
With the exception of inner city areas, higher ‘tenure diverse’ areas have relatively high concentrations of low-income renters (both social and private renters) compared to the average, meaning they tend to be poorer. Key Points Social housing is becoming less concentrated in particular areas. Areas are also becoming more tenure diverse, with fewer areas with only home ownership. But with the exception of inner city areas, higher ‘tenure diverse’ areas have relatively high concentrations of low-income renters (both social and private renters) compared to the average, meaning they tend to be poorer. Living away from major urban areas and individual measures of social inclusion and economic security are the strongest predictors of positive social wellbeing. Tenure per se is not associated with lowered wellbeing but living in high density dwellings is, particularly for social renters. The chances of being employed in areas with high concentrations of social housing and high tenure diversity are better for moderate to higher income renters but not for social and lower income private renters.
This project involved descriptive analysis and modelling techniques to understand the structural drivers of homelessness, using data from three Census periods (2001, 2006 and 2011). The project utilised data from the ABS Census of Population and Housing, the Specialist Homelessness Service (SHS) Collection from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and other relevant data. Homelessness is found to be highly spatially concentrated, with 42 per cent of the nation’s homeless population concentrated in only 33 of the 328 regions (i.e. 10% of all regions) in 2011. By contrast, such regions received only 34 per cent of homelessness resources (in terms of SHS capacity). While this spatial mismatch of resourcing has lessened over time, redressing this imbalance is an important area for policy attention. Homelessness is concentrated in particular urban areas and remote regions of Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory, with regions with higher shares of males, sole parents and Indigenous persons having higher rates of homelessness. There was weaker evidence of homelessness being linked to younger populations with this mainly being an urban phenomenon. Policy-makers might seek to target these demographic groups and regions. Contrary to expectations, modelling results suggest that areas with high homelessness do not have a shortage of affordable housing (rather they tend to have an abundant supply). Furthermore, weak labour markets (i.e. with higher unemployment) were associated with lower per capita rates of homelessness. Tentative explanations for these puzzling results point to the fact that low-income, low-rent areas have a higher population at risk of homelessness. Relatively fewer people are at risk of homelessness in higher income, lower unemployment regions but they are more vulnerable if they exit housing (since there is a lack of affordable housing in those locations). Homeless people might also migrate to such areas seeking work. Provision of affordable housing in such suburbs might partially address this problem.
Home ownership is valued not just for the housing it provides but also as a means to accumulate wealth over the life-cycle. However, there is evidence that younger generations are making later transitions into home ownership and increased numbers not entering at all—this is not just among low-income earners but also middle-upper income Australians aged 25–44. Even so, parental transfers—those occurring while parents or relatives are alive ('inter-vivos' transfers) or after they die ('bequests')—might have an important role in overcoming intergenerational inequities by assisting people to enter first home ownership. This study used longitudinal data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Australia Survey (HILDA) to model the impact of transfers on the likelihood recipients enter home ownership and its impact on overall distributions of wealth. The study found that receipt of a bequest increases home ownership rates among beneficiaries by 4 to 8 percentage points, and outright ownership by 10 percentage points compared to non-recipients. The probability of entry into first home ownership increases at or just after a bequest is received. Large inter-vivos gifts (over $5000) are also associated with transition into home ownership. Bequests and inter-vivos gifts are also associated with recipients purchasing higher value housing compared to those not receiving such gifts. While inter-generational transfers of this type appear to be beneficial for the younger generation that receive them, it is clear the net effect is regressive for overall wealth distribution. This is because renters are less likely to receive transfers compared to those already in home ownership. This suggests that there is a clear potential for housing transfers to play a role in wealth becoming more concentrated over time. The findings help initiate a discussion around how large wealth holdings held by older generations that have benefited from increasing house prices might be unlocked for the benefit of younger generations while relieving pressure on government budgets. However, it also highlights the importance of tax and transfer policies in redressing inequities within generations, including how to target those groups that might miss out on intergenerational transfers.
