As the peak body for community housing organisations, CHIA’s number one priority is advocating at Federal level for more social and affordable housing. There is a recognised shortfall in supply.

CHIA commissioned the City Futures Research Centre, UNSW to update 2016 analysis of unmet housing need with the 2021 Census data . The updated analysis showed that there were 640,000 households were either homeless or in the bottom two income quintiles and in rental stress. The analysis also estimated that this number would rise to circa 940,000 by 2041 if no action was taken.

A national and regional snapshot, as well as an interactive dashboard which provides a detailed breakdown of households with unmet need, can be viewed here.

This work was commissioned by CHIA with the support of the following organisations: CHIA NSW, CHIA Victoria, Q Shelter, Shelter TAS, Shelter WA and CHCSA.

Housing Australia publishes annually its State of the Nation Report, the latest being 2022-23.

CHIA also released its National Plan for Affordable Housing in 2018 which provides a blueprint for the decade.