National housing and homelessness policy development needs a coordinated National Strategy

A National Housing and Homelessness Strategy with a comprehensive mission to ensure everyone in Australia has adequate housing would help Australia address its housing challenges, new AHURI research has confirmed. The research, ‘Towards an Australian Housing and Homelessness Strategy’, undertaken for AHURI by researchers from UNSW Sydney and RMIT University, investigates the rationale for an Australian Housing and Homelessness Strategy and sets out options for achieving such a Strategy.

‘Currently, housing and homelessness policies, powers and responsibilities are shared across Australian federal, state and local levels of government. Also, within the Australian Government, housing policy making is divided; no one agency has overall responsibility for housing outcomes and for forming a strategic view of the housing system’ says Dr Chris Martin from UNSW Sydney, lead author of the research.

‘There is similar fragmentation of housing responsibilities at the state and territory level, with housing and homelessness capabilities dispersed through diverse agencies each having narrowly defined roles and priorities,’ he adds. ‘This division makes it very difficult for us as a nation to grapple with the complex and interdependent nature of our housing system. It’s a major barrier to addressing the full scope of our housing policy challenges in a coherent way, and means we aren’t using all of the policy levers that we could be.’

‘A National Housing and Homelessness Strategy would form a strong framework for co-ordinating housing and homelessness policy development and action across Australia’s different levels of government and public, private and not-for-profit sectors.’ 

The research looked at a number of housing strategies being used internationally, and identifies steps that are necessary for a successful Australian national Strategy.

Key findings include:

• It is essential to build an informed constituency for policy reform: This constituency is both in the members of the public whose interests are at stake, and in the institutions that effect policy. 
• Accountability is crucial to policy reform. This means more than accounting for the expenditure of public money, or for ‘value for money’ in outcomes, says Dr Martin. ‘It’s about demonstrating commitment to the objectives of the reform process, both to the other agencies and stakeholders in the process and to the people it is intended to serve.’ 
• A dedicated housing agency is vital: ‘International experience shows us that dedicated housing agencies play a vital role in co-ordinating the development and implementation of strategies,’ says Dr Martin. ‘Housing Australia could be Australia’s lead housing agency.’ Building on existing housing domain knowledge from the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, Housing Australia would have the guidance of an independent board; be answerable to the Housing Minister; resource the discussions of the Ministerial Council on Housing and Homelessness; take the lead on communicating with other Commonwealth and state and territory agencies; and present the public face of the Strategy.