Briefs

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recognises a person as experiencing homelessness if they are living in a dwelling that is inadequate; has no tenure, or if their initial tenure is short and not extendable; or does not allow them to have control of, and access to space for social relations. From this overview the ABS defines six categories of homelessness:

While there are many ways of comparing a household's income with their housing costs, not all measures provide comparisons that are useful for policy-makers. Indeed, concern about levels of housing affordability is not about whether house prices are going up per se but rather the changes in the relationship between housing costs and household incomes.

One proposed solution to help low income and disadvantaged households access housing in the private rental sector is through ‘head leasing’. Head leasing is where a private rental property is rented from the landlord/owner by a legal entity, such as a community housing provider (CHP) or a government agency, which then on lets the property to a low income or disadvantaged tenant.

Proposals to increase the supply of rental dwellings in Australia and improve the experience of tenants have included developing a ‘build to rent’ and a large corporate landlord (LCL) sector. While these two sectors may share similarities, there is a subtle difference between them.

Platforms like Airbnb have brought about huge growth in short-term letting (STL) practices. AHURI research has identified a number of quite different reasons that motivate hosts to list their dwelling on Airbnb.