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Federal Budget silent on National Housing Strategy

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This year’s Federal Budget shows exactly why Australia needs a National Housing Strategy, according to the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA).

The $110m for five years to continue work on remote housing in the Northern Territory is very welcome, as is the added funding for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to improve housing data. Spending on infrastructure to reduce urban congestion and improve transport networks to support our growing population is welcome. The $15m to encourage planning reforms in Western Sydney is a good start.

But this Budget is silent on one of the biggest pressures facing Australian households: housing affordability, says CHIA Executive Director Peta Winzar.

‘House prices at the top of the East coast capital city markets may be coming off the boil, but home ownership remains a challenge for many families on low and moderate incomes and more than 40 per cent of low income renters are in housing stress,’ Ms Winzar says.

‘Unless we have a National Housing Strategy and the programs to support it, housing will still be on the front pages of the paper in 12 months’ time, when tonight’s tax cuts promised tonight hit people’s bank accounts. And it will still be a problem in 2024 when the 37 per cent tax bracket is eliminated.’

In 2017, the Treasurer laid the groundwork for a coherent, sustained effort to improve housing affordability, raising the hopes of a growing number of Australians who are finding themselves it increasingly difficult to afford a secure, affordable and appropriate place to call home.

‘We now need a National Housing Strategy to follow through,’ Ms Winzar says.

‘We need a National Strategy that commits to more fundamental tax reform to remove the distortions in the housing market. A Strategy that includes reform of Commonwealth Rent Assistance to reduce rental stress for private renters. A Strategy that sets housing as a core component of infrastructure investment. A Strategy that commits to delivering 200,000 social and affordable dwellings over the next decade.

‘We need a National Housing Strategy which guides a sustained effort of all levels of government to fix housing affordability, especially for those on low and moderate incomes. Because being able to afford somewhere to live is more important than a generic tax cut,’ Ms Winzar says.

Victorian budget ignores housing crisis

Budget News Victoria No Comments

Victoria is set to retain its unenviable record of having the lowest percentage of social housing in Australia, with the budget lacking the type of investment needed to provide safe, secure and affordable housing for those on low incomes.

Chief Executive Officer of Community Housing Industry Association Victoria (CHIA Vic) Lesley Dredge says whilst the Victorian Government is to be commended on implementing the Homes for Victorians strategy, and putting in place the architecture needed for growth in social housing, Victoria’s level of social housing will continue to go backwards.

The latest statistics show there are currently 36,742 households on the Victorian Housing Register, awaiting social housing, including 17,848 on the priority list.

‘Those figures represents only some of the Victorian households experiencing extreme housing stress – impacting on all aspects of their lives and the communities in which they live, Ms Dredge says.

‘We must address the urgent backlog of social and affordable housing in Victoria. With Melbourne growing by 125,000 people last year and housing stress increasing in our regional centres, doing nothing is just not an option,’ Ms Dredge says.

‘We need 1800 properties just to stand still and remain the worst in the country – whilst the Budget target is a drop of 45 social housing dwellings.’

Ms Dredge says there were positives to come out of the Budget, including
– rebuilding the TAFE system and aligning the training system with industry
– big investments in mental health and addiction
– further investment in health and education
– continuation of the large focus on infrastructure.

‘But without an affordable, well-located home it is hard for those on low incomes to make use of these initiatives.’

Encourage survey participation

Indigenous housing Member news News No Comments

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) 2018 National Social Housing Survey (NSHS) has been distributed to a randomly selected group of community housing tenants and members are encouraged, through their communications, to impress upon them the importance of participating.

Whilst organisations won’t know if any of their tenants have been selected for the survey, the AIHW has asked that they still ensure tenants know the surveys are legitimate and important: the data collected helps inform service improvements to social housing programs and is used for national reporting purposes.

Selected tenants will have received a pre-approval letter that advises them to expect the survey. A follow up letter includes the survey, which they can complete online.

The AIHW has also requested that community housing organisations refrain from running their own surveys between mid-April and June to avoid confusing tenants.

The 2018 NSHS will collect information from a sample of tenants in social housing, including community housing tenants, from all states and territories. Community housing tenants who are selected to participate in the 2018 NSHS will receive the survey by mail. Information collected from community housing tenants will include:

tenants’ satisfaction with current housing and housing – related services
tenants’ housing histories
tenants’ need for, and ability to access, other community and health services, and
demographic data about the tenant and their household.

The NSHS will also include tenants in Public Housing, State Owned and Managed Indigenous Housing and, for the first time in 2018, will include tenants in Indigenous Community Housing in Queensland.

Some of this year’s survey results will be included in the Productivity Commission’s annual Report on Government Services in January 2019, with the rest to be released in March/April 2019.

The last NSHS was held 2016. Click here for the 2016 results.

Last days for The New Urban Agenda

Innovation News NSW No Comments

Compass Housing Services and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage’s Sustainability Advantage Program have partnered to bring you The New Urban Agenda: Partnering for a resilient, inclusive, sustainable NSW Forum.

The Group Managing Director of Compass Housing, Greg Budworth, is one of the keynote speakers, along with Michael Nolan, the Chair of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme

The battle for sustainability will be won or lost in cities. To achieve a prosperous, productive and sustainable NSW, growing issues around inclusion, liveability and resilience must be tackled head-on. Finding scalable solutions to these challenges is at the heart of Agenda 2030 (the Sustainable Development Goals) and the New Urban Agenda—and a key focus of NSW Government priorities and local council strategies. But government can’t do it alone: to get where we need to be by 2030 requires new levels of ambition, collaboration and innovation.

Compass Housing Services and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage have partnered to bring you The New Urban Agenda: Partnering for a resilient, inclusive, sustainable NSW, an interactive, multi-stakeholder forum that will unpick three of NSW’s most pressing problems:

providing better, more inclusive access to housing and basic services
creating clean, resource-efficient and liveable communities
building resilient, low-carbon urban economies

The forum will be held on Friday, May 4, from 9am to 5pm.

Scam warning

Member news News No Comments

A warning to members and stakeholders that someone impersonating a CHIA employee has been emailing organisations in the housing space and asking them to get in touch to share some documents.

If you receive an email from Stephen Ronald, who is purporting to be CHIA’s Manager Policy and Standards, please do not engage and definitely do not open any attachments. This person is in no way associated with CHIA and never has been.

Genuine emails from CHIA will include the domain @communityhousing.com.au rather than being from a generic gmail or other email account.

Please share this warning with your staff and networks.

PPHA delivers 73 new homes for low income residents

Member news News Victoria No Comments

Port Phillip Housing Association (PPHA) will team up with the Whitehorse City Council and property developer MAB Corporation (MAB) to deliver 73 brand new architect-designed, affordable homes for low income residents, particularly older people and those living with a disability.

The $25 million affordable housing project in Bruce Street, Box Hill will further expand PPHA’s social housing capacity in the inner-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, at a time when rental properties for low income residents, are critically low.

Whitehorse City Council is one of the first local authorities in Melbourne’s east to take the lead in increasing affordable housing.

PPHA Chairman Frank O’Connor said: ‘This project proves just what can be achieved when private enterprise, local government, great design and innovative community housing come together with a sincere, common purpose.

‘A critical solution to the housing affordability crisis being felt right across our communities, is to fundamentally increase the number of affordable, quality homes available to rent.

‘There are simply not enough affordable homes to fill the need, where that need is located,’ Mr. O’Connor said.

‘Building contemporary, beautiful, good quality homes where people can live safely, with dignity and at an affordable price brings relief not just to them, but to the whole community.’

Whitehorse Mayor, Cr Andrew Davenport said this new development will provide 73 well designed apartments for local residents who will pay rent only within their means.

‘In Whitehorse, only 1.6 per cent of all rental vacancies in 2016 were classified as affordable,’ Cr Davenport said.

‘With Port Phillip Housing Association and MAB Corporation involved in the project, Box Hill locals can be assured that the development will be attractive and will integrate beautifully into the character and amenity of the local area.’

This will be the second affordable housing collaboration between PPHA, HAYBALL architects and MAB Corporation, a leading, diversified Melbourne-based development group. The same team was behind the Moorabbin Affordable Housing development completed in 2011 with a project value of $23 million. Located in South Road Moorabbin, the project delivered seven storeys and 75 apartments at completion.

The Bruce Street Box Hill project will comprise;

73 architect-designed affordable housing apartments,
built to the Victorian Government’s Better Apartment Design standards,
a mix of studio, 1 and 2-bedroom and dual key dwellings,
will include apartments specially designed for those living with a disability, with
40 apartments suitable for older residents.

The site will also include a social enterprise café as well as commercial and retail opportunities, to create a supportive vibrant neighbourhood for residents.

PPHA Chief Executive Haleh Homaei said building resilient and sustainable neighbourhoods to support good quality housing is the key to long term, stable, affordable housing tenancies and ensuring return on investment.

This expertise, plus our 30+ years’ experience in tenancy management are the unique elements that we, as a robust, regulated community housing agency, bring to this table and to all our collaborative partnerships.

‘We are thrilled to be working on our next exciting project with Whitehorse City Council, MAB and Hayball. This project will deliver $25 million high quality – affordable housing to Box Hill.’

article contributed by PPHA

Meet your Board Members: Leonie King

Member news News NSW No Comments

CHIA Board member and City West Housing CEO Leonie King brings a unique perspective to her community housing role.

Leonie spent a number of years working in housing as a senior NSW Government executive. She bowed out of the bureaucracy in 2016 as an Executive Director in the Department of Family and Community Services, her most recent roles including responsibility for community housing and specialist disability accommodation.
‘I had developed a passion for the community housing sector,’ Leonie says, ‘And I thought the obvious thing to do was to go into in the sector that I had been involved in growing and supporting for a considerable period of time.

‘What has always appealed to me about housing, and about social and affordable housing in particular, is that tension between the commercial imperative and social objectives and how you use use both levers to make lives better for people. That makes it a very interesting area to work in because you are always having to make judgement calls and trade offs.’

Leonie is optimistic about community housing’s potential to develop and grow over the next few years.

‘There had been a bit of a drought nationally in recent years in terms of government focus and attention on the community housing sector, but now there are so many different parts of government that all see the community housing sector’s usefulness in terms of their ability to deliver on the government’s policy agenda.’

Not that the attention is without its difficulties, as different government agencies and tiers of Government have different contractual obligations and different risk profiles, adding to the administrative complexity and costs of managing multiple similar, but slightly different, programs and contracts.

‘It would be really nice to see a bit more consistency; if they contracted in a similar way, if the standard terms and the standard risk profile for like programs was similar that just makes the decision making process so much easier.’

City West has been a major beneficiary of the only planning scheme in Australia (in the City of Sydney) that sees developer contributions levied on developments and passed through directly to a community housing organisation.

‘We have received quite significant contributions under that model which is invested in new affordable housing.’

Leonie says it is unfortunate that many local governments who receive affordable housing in exchange for density bonuses to developers are hesitant to consider a role for community housing beyond property and tenancy management.

‘The standard model is that the councils receive those affordable housing units at the end of the project, maintain ownership and outsource the management; I think there is a potential missed opportunity in either transferring ownership to community housing providers or thinking about forming a joint venture or partnership arrangement with community housing at the front end of that process.

‘The strength of the City of Sydney model is that they saw that owning and managing community housing was not their core business or their core strength,’ Leonie says.

While City West Housing has not participated in the NSW Government’s transfer of more than 6,000 public housing properties to community housing providers in recent years Leonie, unsurprisingly, is a major fan of this initiative.

‘I passionately believe that the first major tranche of property transfers in NSW, which also saw a transfer of ownership, was the trigger that was needed at that time in NSW to build the balance sheet capacity for the sector so it could then borrow and deliver more affordable housing.’

NSW now has a number of large community housing providers, holding significant assets, undertaking development and operating at scale which is a direct result of those title transfers, she says.
‘If you want to grow through borrowing you can’t do that without a balance sheet.’

A number of those providers now stand to benefit from the NSW Government’s commitment to transfer the management of a further 14,000 public housing properties.

Looking to the future, Leonie would like to see more public housing transferred to the community housing sector.

‘I strongly believe in having a diversified delivery system to provide more choice and to create innovation. I think that is really hard to create when, as is the case in NSW, you still have a 130,000 property portfolio managed by one provider. So I would like to see change of at least management, if not ownership.

‘The more this sector grows, the more housing outcomes we can deliver for people…so I hope governments continue that trajectory.’

PM has run out of excuses to walk away from remote housing funding

Indigenous housing No Comments

Queensland’s peak body for the housing and homelessness sector, Q Shelter, has called on the Prime Minister to step up and provide Commonwealth funding for remote housing in Queensland.

Q Shelter’s Executive Director, Leone Crayden, said that the PM had run out of excuses to fund a new National Partnership Agreement on Remote Housing (NPRH) now that the Queensland Government had announced a $1.08 billion funding commitment for remote housing.

“The Commonwealth has used every excuse they can to walk away from funding NPRH, but the facts remain the same – Queensland’s delivered housing on time, on budget, and exceeded local Aboriginal employment targets.” Ms Crayden said.

Ms Crayden said that the Prime Minister’s own report into the program last year praised state governments for exceeding their targets in delivering new homes, refurbishing older houses, and providing employment opportunities for local communities.

Ms Crayden said that investment in this housing was providing employment to young people in remote communities through a training and skills program and was crucial in achieving targets for “Closing the Gap” on Indigenous disadvantage.

Ms Crayden stressed that despite this success, the job was far from over in addressing housing need in remote communities.

“The Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, justified walking away from NPRH by arguing that the states needed to have skin in the game when it came to remote housing.”

“Well, the Queensland Government has also now publicly committed more than $1b toward remote housing, so it’s time to see a similar commitment from the Commonwealth.”

“We’re calling on the PM to not walk away from funding remote housing. It’s time to pick up the phone, make a deal, and finish the job together.”

Click to read QShelter’s position paper on this issue.

Property tax reform the answer to housing affordability

Budget Federal No Comments

Last financial year, the Commonwealth Government spent less than $6 billion on assisting low income renters and over $70 billion on providing housing assistance to property owners.

In a country that prides itself on giving everyone a fair go, the balance needs to change, according to a pre-budget submission to the Commonwealth Government by the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA).

CHIA’s Executive Director, Peta Winzar, says owner occupiers received capital gains tax exemptions worth $61.5 billion last year, and property investors and trusts reaped a further $9.6 billion via capital gains tax concessions.^[1] A total of $76 billion of tax breaks for property owners.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth spent just $4.53 billion on Commonwealth Rent Assistance for low income renters, with 40 per cent of CRA recipients still being in rental stress after receiving the payment (defined as spending more than 30 per cent of household income on rent).

‘At the moment, the taxation system is heavily weighted in favour of those who own property against those who are unlikely to ever be in the position to buy their own home,’ Ms Winzar says.

‘Reforming Capital Gains Tax and negative gearing could deliver savings of up to $30 billion a year – more than enough to alleviate rental stress among one million low-income renters and to build 200,000 more social and affordable housing units which are desperately needed,’ she says.

‘We propose removing the Capital Gains Tax exemption from home-owners and progressively reducing the CGT discount on residential property from 50 per cent to 25 per cent.

‘The 50 per cent CGT discount rule is intended to adjust a capital gain by reference to inflation, but the current rules over-compensate sellers, particularly where properties are held for just a few years,’ Ms Winzar says.

‘To discourage unhealthy property speculation, we are also proposing that the CGT discount be reduced to 15 per cent where residential property is re-sold within five years of acquisition.’

‘And negative gearing could be better used to stimulate additional housing supply if it was restricted to new homes,’ Ms Winzar says.

Ms Winzar says it’s time for the Commonwealth to find a better balance between assisting home owners and renters. These reforms of taxation policies can reduce the incentive for speculative investment that drives prices higher, ensure profits from selling into rising markets are shared more fairly between property owners and the wider community, and deliver more affordable rental housing.

The taxation reforms were just part of CHIA’s pre-budget submission to the Commonwealth. Click here to view the submission in its entirety.

[1] The Treasury. 2016 Tax Expenditures Statement. Table 1.1 p9. The value of exempting home owners from CGT ($34 billion), the value of the 50% CGT discount for home owners ($27.5 billion), CGT discount for individuals and trusts ($9.6m). Negative gearing is not reported as a tax expenditure, but is estimated at between $0 and $5 billion; See Dale, T. Budget impacts of negative gearing, in Parliamentary Library Flagpost Blog August 2015.

New development for family violence survivors

News No Comments

The Victorian Property Fund has financed a new housing development to be managed by Women’s Housing Ltd in Newport, Melbourne, that has been designed specifically for women and children escaping family violence.

The project replaced seven existing housing units with nine one-bedroom units and 11 two-bedroom units.

Women’s Housing is a community housing provider with a focus on housing older women and survivors of family violence.

Social Impact of Affordable Housing

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AHURI has released a new report , Understanding opportunities for social impact investment in the development of affordable housing.

The report examines the opportunities for, barriers to, and risks to social impact investment (SII) for social and affordable housing in Australia.

SIIs aim to achieve a specific beneficial social objective together with a financial return, and measure the achievement of both.

The researchers looked at US and UK models and interviewed government experts, social impact investors and not-for-profit housing providers, to inform the analysis.

You can download the report here.

News No Comments

The Sydney Western City Planning Panel has approved an application by BaptistCare Community Housing’s to undertake a $39 million development for seniors in Narellan, a region that is lacking in affordable housing.

The panel has approved the two stage development that will see the construction of an initial 84 senior housing dwellings and 38 affordable rentals (group homes) followed by a 129 room/134 bed residential aged care facility and 46 retirement villas.

News NSW No Comments

The NSW Aboriginal Housing Office has partnered with the NSW Federation of Housing Associations (NSWFHA) to support the development of a new peak body to represent that state’s Aboriginal community housing sector.

The new body is to be called the Aboriginal Community Housing Industry Association NSW– or ACHIA NSW – to promote a close working relationship with the mainstream peak bodies; the national Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) and state NSWFHA (which plans to change its name to CHIA NSW in 2018).

Since being established in December, ACHIA’s interim committee has been developing its terms of reference, a work plan and strategic priorities to take back to the sector for consultation.

NSWFHA has also been working hard to raise the profile of the new peak with stakeholders, including all levels of government, so that Aboriginal housing is not just seen as a specialist area dealt with by specialist agencies.

The interim committee will consult with the sector on the governance structure for ACHIA, including elections and the selection criteria for Board members.

Strong economic argument for govt investment in housing

Federal National Affordable Housing Agreement National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation News No Comments

Economist Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ is looking a bit arthritic when it comes to the housing market, according to Professor Duncan McLennan.

At a seminar in Sydney this week, Professor McLennan proposed a strong set of economic arguments for government investment in housing to support the traditional arguments of affordable housing as a merit good which makes a critical social contribution.

Professor McLennan observed that, across the western world, governments had stepped back from investing in affordable housing in the 1980s, following the idea that the market should prevail. It is now abundantly clear that Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand of the market would see the self-interested actions of individuals frequently benefiting society more than if actions that were intended to benefit society is not ensuring good outcomes for those on low incomes.

The broader housing market is made up of a mosaic of housing sub-markets that interact in complex ways with the wider economy. In cities like Sydney, the housing market has become so overinflated compared to the wider housing market that government cannot manage it using the usual monetary policy solutions without disrupting the wider economy.

It is surprising how little analysis there has been in Australia of the impact of housing on the economy, he said. Yet housing represents 20 to 25 per cent of the household budget; it is the most significant asset and major debt of households.

When households spend more and more of their income on housing costs, they divert spending away from consumption of other goods and services and they save less. Productivity is lowered by the long commutes of key workers, congestion in our cities, and the mismatch of jobs and housing.

There is a strong intergenerational impact as well he said. Children’s educational outcomes are impacted by poor housing and concentration of low income households in more affordable areas, away from job opportunities, compromises the school to work transitions of young people. A new narrative is needed, he argued, which deals with housing as part of a country’s essential infrastructure, not as separate or in opposition to investment in transport or energy, for example.

McLennan’s presentation was followed by a panel discussion involving Jennifer Westacott, CEO of the Business Council of Australia, Emeritus Professor Judith Yates, and Dr Marcus Spiller of SGS Economics.

Ms Westacott flagged that the Business Council of Australia is keen to work with the sector on housing policy. She identified that one of the reasons for our housing problem was the failure of planning systems to take a long-term, integrated view of transport housing and other infrastructure.

We need to encourage large scale private sector investment into affordable housing and reform the taxes and charges that distort the housing market. Westacott said it was time to look again at how housing subsidies were delivered into social housing, observing that the situation now might be very different if the Howard government’s 1996 proposals had succeeded (to replace the Commonwealth-state housing agreement funding to the states with rent assistance).

Innovation in the monolithic public housing system was nigh impossible, Ms Westacott said.

Judith Yates urged the audience not to abandon the social justice narrative in the pursuit of stronger economic arguments for government investment in housing. There is plenty of evidence that growing inequality itself lowers a country’s productivity, she said, but we should not just be concerned about inequality because of its impact on productivity.

Yates asked if we succeed in changing the housing system to increase productivity, how will the benefits of that increase be shared across the community? Looking towards Australia in 2117, she challenged the audience to think more creatively about the housing challenge – should we be building more cities for instance?

Marcus Spiller of SGS Economics challenged the audience to consider why governments had become so deaf to the economic arguments for intervening in the housing market. Since neither the Federal nor state governments appear able to deal with Australia’s housing challenge, he proposed that a better way to transact housing policies would be to devolve authority for matters such as planning and taxes to the regional level. Regional, he hastened to add, means metro-wide planning approaches. Spiller also asked the question of who owns the development rights to land – while ownership of the land is clear, surely the development rights belong to all of us.

Submission rejects expansion of ACNC role

Federal News No Comments

In a submission to the Treasury’s Review of the Australian Charities and Not For Profit Commission (ACNC), the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) has rejected a proposed expansion of the ACNC’s remit.

The ACNC had recommended that its Act be amended to include promoting the effective use of resources of not-for-profits and accountability to donors, beneficiaries and the public.

CHIA Executive Director, Peta Winzar, says the recommendation is misguided.

‘First and foremost, the Board of a not-for-profit organisation is responsible for ensuring its resources are used effectively,’ Ms Winzar says.

‘Second, in the community housing sector the state-based regulators which operate under the National Regulatory Scheme for Community Housing, and its counterparts in Victoria and Western Australia, periodically review the effectiveness of both for profit and not-for-profit registered community housing organisations.

‘Third, the he National Regulatory System for Community Housing (NRSCH) publishes sector-wide data on the effectiveness of the registered sector. Sector-wide information about tenant and housing outcomes of community housing organisations is also published by the Productivity Commission in its annual Report on Government Services.

‘So we see no value in the ACNC shadowing the functions of a Board, or duplicating the existing arrangements for regulating and reporting on community housing organisations,’ Ms Winzar says.

However, CHIA did support the ACNC’s proposal to include a statutory definition of a ‘not-for-profit organisation’ to clarify how assets will be handled in the event of an organisation winding up.

‘CHIA would also welcome further work by the ACNC and the Australian Accounting Standards Board to improve the reporting framework for registered charities,’ Ms Winzar says.

‘We would, of course, expect that changes to the reporting framework will advance the existing objective of the Act to reduce unnecessary regulatory obligations on the Australian not-for-profit sector.’

CHIA Vic opens early bird tix

News Training Victoria No Comments

CHIA Vic’s has released early bird tickets for the Brave New World of Community Housing conference, to be held on Thursday, April 19.

Keynote speaker, Derek Ballantyne, is the new Chair of the organisation tasked with the implementation of Canada’s new National Housing Strategy.

Derek will provide insights into the development of the strategy, and expected outcomes.is a vital educational and networking event that provides our members and key stakeholders access to the industry’s latest developments, policy and best practice via inspirational speakers.

See details on the conference program, or secure your early bird tickets now.