What is the status of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement?

The Senate Economics Legislation Committee has recommended the senate pass the legislation relating to the new National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA). The Agreement was proposed in the 2017-2018 Budget.

The Legislation Committee heard from a wide range of key organisations involved with providing social housing and homelessness services and from state and territory governments. The Committee recognised there is a need for improved housing and homelessness outcomes, and agreed that the funding of core social housing and homelessness services is critical to protecting vulnerable Australians.

The NHHA legislation will require states and territories to meet a number of conditions. These include having a housing strategy that both indicates the level of housing supply needed to meet projected housing demand and outlines ‘the reforms and initiatives that will be implemented to meet this need’; and a homelessness strategy that addresses identified ‘priority homelessness cohorts’ and includes ‘reforms or initiatives that contribute to a reduction in the incidence of homelessness’. Both the housing and homelessness strategies will need to be readily available to the public through the state or territory website.

In addition, states and territories will have to match funding from the Commonwealth Government for designated homelessness services, as well as provide information about housing, homelessness and housing affordability to ‘support a nationally consistent data set for housing and homelessness’.