Children living in tents in the bush. Single mums sliding into homelessness after rent increases. Pensioners sleeping in vans after working all their lives.
We've all seen stories of the many Australians engulfed by the housing crisis, as well as the fierce debate about how to best go about correcting course.
For years there's been one solution most experts have raised over and over again: building more social and affordable housing.
But it doesn't seem to have happened yet.
At the end of 2023, there were 426,582 social housing dwellings across the country, according to Productivity Commission data released this week.
Between 2006 and 2022, social housing stock grew by just 36,200 dwellings, or about 2,260 homes each year, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare figures show. Victoria saw a net increase of just 74 dwellings between 2018 and 2022, according to state government data.
Despite the expert consensus that we need more stock, as well as the announcement of new money and projects across the country, social housing wait lists have stretched out to more than a decade in some areas.
It raises the question, if we've had a solution to the housing crisis with broad support in front of us for years, why does it feel like we're still so far behind?
What's the difference between social and affordable housing?
First, it's worth flagging these are not the same thing, despite often being used interchangeably.
Social housing is government-subsidised housing for vulnerable and low-income people. It comprises:
- public housing, which is owned and managed by governments
- and community housing, which is managed, and often owned, by not-for-profits
Social housing is allocated according to need — and that need has skyrocketed in recent years.
The definition of affordable housing is a bit harder to pin down, as different jurisdictions have different definitions. Broadly speaking, it's something of a stepping stone between social housing and the private market.
"Social housing costs governments more and provides a much better subsidy for tenants. Affordable housing costs governments less. It's still reduced compared to the market, but is less beneficial to the tenants," says Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
"The upside of it is that it can be provided to more people, so rather than providing a very deep subsidy for a small number, they provide a smaller subsidy for a larger number of people."
Now, onto some of the reasons we seem to be experiencing so much inertia in getting new projects built.
The politics at play
Political will and investment, or lack thereof, has been a big one, Dr Fotheringham says.
He says the main reason Australia has a shortage of social and affordable housing is chronic underinvestment by governments of all levels and political persuasion over decades.
Social and affordable housing is also not a very good "vote winner", says Hal Pawson, professor of housing research and policy at UNSW Sydney.
He says governments have in recent years preferred to target housing assistance towards first-home buyers.
"The wider electorate finds the idea of helping working households get a foot on the ladder in home ownership to be a very meritorious thing ... whereas social housing doesn't have that sort of cachet."
Professor Pawson says Australia's structure of government has also been a factor — it's the states which have the direct responsibility for planning and housing, but it's the federal government that has the resources.
He says that's led to buck passing.
"For most of the last 10 years we've had federal governments that have said ... 'perhaps we need more [social and affordable housing], but it ain't our job. State and territory governments: we would be more than happy if you were to spend your own money on doing this, but don't look towards us'."
Labour issues and lack of financial foresight
Dr Fotheringham says governments are starting to come back to the table and the politics are shifting.
But new housing still takes a long time to build.
"The pipeline, particularly for significant estates or development, is multiple years in the making. One of the real challenges we've had since the start of the pandemic is disruption to those sorts of systems," Dr Fotheringham says.
Materials such as timber frames and premium concrete have become "incredibly hard to get" over the last few years, he says.
A further complication is that just as governments are looking to spend more on housing, the people to build it aren't around, he says.
"The workforce is nowhere near sufficient for what we need.
"[The pandemic saw] a lot of migrants doing housing construction go home to the countries that they were from ... and apprenticeship programs, traineeship programs, they take years."
While building more social housing and buying the land to do it on also isn't cheap, Professor Pawson says there's still been an "overemphasis" on short term costs.
He says governments need to be convinced there is a long-term pay-off for the community when the construction debt is paid off.
A Swinburne University study from 2022 projected costs could exceed $1 billion annually by 2036 due to spending on homeless, health and justice services if the supply of social and affordable housing wasn't "significantly improved".
Productivity Commission data also shows almost $1.4 billion was spent on emergency homelessness services in 2022-23. That's an increase of over 30 per cent in the last four years, Professor Pawson says.
"There are tangible costs very closely related to the inadequate provision of social housing," he says.
Stigma and public resistance
One of the most highly-publicised and debated barriers to building social and affordable housing is the role of NIMBYs.
An acronym for 'not in my backyard', a NIMBY is someone who opposes developments in their local area. When it comes to social housing, it's often because they're worried that could impact the value of their own home.
Professor Pawson says social housing, particularly public housing, has a lot of stigma attached to it.
He says the way social housing had been handled in the past had "tainted the brand", and newer developments didn't have to look or be managed in the same fashion.
"Most people in the industry would now agree it was a big mistake to build very large public housing estates especially on the edges of cities where there wasn't good access to jobs and services.
"It's been made worse by the fact that over decades there's been underinvestment in maintaining that housing, and a lot of it is looking pretty sorry for itself today."
Dr Foderingham says while community opposition is still strong, it is much weaker than it used to be because people are much more likely now to recognise the market "has gone out of control".
"Some of the stigma is starting to shift but it remains a real challenge."
Solving a 'wicked problem'
Australia's housing issues show no sign of significantly easing in 2024.
New projects are being added to the pipeline, but that will be of little consolation to the many lower-income Australians in housing stress right now.
While there's no silver bullet for the crisis, expanding the supply of social and affordable housing will be a key component of any fix, Professor Pawson says.
"Housing affordability ... is a wicked problem that has been growing in intensity and accumulating for decades.
"We have over-expensive housing in the private market. That's damaging both to people who are having to pay too much of their own income to put a roof over their head, and also the economy as a whole is being damaged by the fact that we're needing to spend, collectively, far too much of our household incomes on housing."
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