The supply of affordable private rental housing in Australian cities: short-term and longer-term changes

Housing options for women leaving domestic violence: the limitations of rental subsidy models

“…In Australia and comparable countries, these include increasingly concentrated housing wealth flowing from financialisation (Forrest & Hirayama, 2015), reduced assistance for home ownership and reduced investment in social housing, strong population growth and increased demand. As a result, there is now a significant shortage in low-cost rental supply in Australia, and most low-income private renters are living in unaffordable housing (Hulse et al, 2019). In such a context, the cost of providing rental subsidies increases (Gibb & Whitehead, 2007) and they become less effective.…”

“…This paper contributes to international housing policy literature focused on rental subsidies as a mechanism to increase the affordability of private rental housing and mitigate the risks of homelessness (e.g. Byrne, 2020;Colburn, 2019aColburn, , 2019bDewilde, 2018;Hulse et al, 2019). The paper also explores how a rhetoric of 'choice' is deployed to support subsidy policy, and how this masks the imperfections of using demand subsidies to meet the housing needs of the highly vulnerable in highly competitive rental markets where rent levels are unregulated in tenancy law.…”

Policy coordination and housing outcomes during COVID-19

“…Indeed, it is questionable whether large parts of the housing system remain fit-for-purpose given the number of homeless people across Australia remains stubbornly high and despite the coordinated efforts of governments, SHS and other actors (Flatau, Wood et al 2015), national per capita rates remained stable between 2001-2016, while the absolute numbers continue to grow (Parkinson, Batterham et al 2019). Furthermore, a sense of dysfunction prevails over the continued shortage of affordable private rental housing, and increasing median rents is exacerbating insecurity (Parkinson, Batterham et al 2019), a greater proportion of Australians are renters, while the supply of affordable options is decreasing (Hulse, Reynolds et al 2019). Homeownership, the foundation of Australia's housing narrative, while remaining constant over the past four decades is projected to decline as younger and low and lower-middle income groups are priced out (Burke, Nygaard et al 2020).…”

“…Third, deregulation of financial markets in turn contributed to a commodification of housing and, through a process of financialisation, housing has increasingly come to be viewed as an asset-class (Pawson, Milligan et al 2020). This has had implications for how Australians navigate housing (Burke, Nygaard et al 2020) and is also intricately linked to the political economy of taxation and public policy settings as they relate to investment (Hulse, Reynolds et al 2019).…”

“…This arrangement also covers specific rental contexts, such as student accommodation and subsidised rental contexts. The long-term dynamics of the PRS have shown an increasing demographic spread of private renters, as well as growing proportions of renters relying on the system long-term (10+ years) for stable accommodation (Hulse, Reynolds et al 2019). Thus, whereas private rental was deemed to be a temporary transition toward home ownership for Australians, it has now supplanted home ownership as the primary (and achievable) goal for residence.…”