Briefs

In 2017 the Australian Government announced it would provide $10.2 million over 10 years to partner with state and territory governments to trial the use of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). As part of that commitment SIBs funded a number of innovative programs, including ones aimed at improving housing and welfare outcomes for young people at risk of homelessness.

With increasingly unaffordable house prices in Australia’s major urban areas, many Australian local government areas (LGAs) are developing affordable housing strategies, often framed around the need for housing for low income ‘key’ workers in their neighbourhoods.

Recent interim findings from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety have led to the Australian Government increasing the number of home care packages by 10,000. The home care packages aim to help older Australians ‘age in place’—in December 2018, 93,331 people were receiving a home care package to help with their day-to-day living, while (in March 2019) another 75,739 people were waiting for a home care package.

The housing aspirations and desires of young adults (aged 25–34) and older Australians who have retired (aged 65–74) are framed around quite different housing and employment experiences and long-term goals. Two recent AHURI reports have  looked at the housing aspirations of younger and older Australians and found some similarity in housing preferences despite the large age gap between the groups.

The importance of financial assistance for Australian households on low incomes who are renting in the private rental market is apparent when we consider that of the 1.31 million income units who received Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) in 2018, 68 per cent would have been in housing affordability stress if they hadn’t received the subsidy.