Despite a few early glitches with the IT, the four speakers at the joint CHIA, National Shelter and Homelessness Australia National Housing and Homelessness (NHHP) briefing session, provided insightful and thought provoking commentary on what a fit for purpose plan should aim to deliver.
Dr Chris Martin, City Futures Research Centre
Dr Chris Martin explained the purpose of strategies, essentially to help ‘coordinate action in complex areas with diverse actors’. He encouraged us to press for a ‘mission driven approach’ that emphasizes the positive outcomes that can be achieved rather than a narrow focus that simply seeks to fix market failures. Chris also cautioned the audience not to fall into the trap of framing proposals as if money is a ‘scarce commodity’ but building an argument that shows the many and diverse benefits that will arise from resolving housing problems. He neatly explained the core issues that fall under the Plan and the policy areas that need to be aligned. And finally, he spoke about the institutional architecture needed to lead the development and implementation of the Plan.
Chris was followed by Dr Marcus Spiller who spoke more specifically as to what the Plan should tackle to sort out housing unaffordability. Instead of the current framing exemplified by the Productivity Commission’s review of the National Housing and Homeless Agreement in which social housing is viewed as a welfare service, Marcus encourages us to frame it as ‘infrastructure to support social and economic sustainability’. Helpfully for those short of time he included a one slide summary of the goals, targets and actions the Plan needs.
Dr Marcus Spiller, SGS Economics and Planning
Moving on Prof Cameron Parsell focused on the homelessness part of the Plan. He kicked off by reminding the audience that the specialist homelessness service system ‘exists because of problems elsewhere (and earlier)’ so there needs to be a balance between making that system work better for those needing it at the same time as tackling the issues that lead to people entering the system. Rather than managing homelessness, the Plan needs to have the ambition to end homelessness. He called for putting homeless people and their diversity at the centre, explicitly recognizing that economic circumstances are a predictor of whether people facing (for example) domestic and family violence end up homeless. Cameron also stressed the importance of the Plan focusing on early intervention and prevention strategies.
Finally, Margaret Pfoh from the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) in BC Canada who spoke about the launch in 2022, of their urban, rural and northern Indigenous Housing Strategy underpinned by Indigenous research and practice. Its objectives are to meet the housing needs of all Indigenous households and ‘Strive toward a world without Indigenous homelessness’. While AHMA works collaboratively with non Indigenous housing organisations it believes that strategies for Indigenous peoples should be led by Indigenous peoples.
We would also like to acknowledge the generosity of Urbis who kindly provided their lovely office for the event.
If you missed the event, the recording, slides and material referred to during the session are available on our website here. We encourage you to use the material to inform any submission to the national plan. The deadline for submissions to the Department of Social Services is 20 October. Information about the submission and details of their consultation workshops is available on their website.
Also noting: Professor Cameron Parsell’s upcoming book can be obtained here and a recent review can be viewed here