pile of documents

Predicting risk to inform housing policy and practice

Existing forecasts of housing assistance are based on expressed demand coupled with population forecasting that do not take account of the complex interactions that cause households to seek housing assistance. As such, they fail to assess early intervention points, risk pathways and household resilience and provide limited evidence about how housing policy development can be geared toward a proactive, early interventionist role.  

As a result, this project will develop national predictive models of the impact of ‘critical life events’ (CLEs) on housing outcomes, and short- and long-term housing assistance need in the context of risk pathways. 

Understanding the impact of CLEs and housing shocks that lead to the need for housing assistance is critical to support innovative policy interventions that seek to intervene early and reduce long-term cost to governments, individuals and society; enable most effective targeting of housing assistance to households in need; and assess the ways in which household resources interact with housing assistance in short- and long-term models of housing assistance provision. 
The research addresses six questions:

  1. Which housing outcomes should be categorised under undesirable housing outcomes that may necessitate government support?
  2. Which CLEs are likely to cause undesirable housing outcomes?
  3. What characteristics of households are significant in forming household resilience?
  4. Which sociodemographic attributes are most associated with vulnerability to CLEs?
  5. What is the national-level spatial distribution of vulnerable cohorts?
  6. What are potential support schemes for early intervention to assist vulnerable households?

Using national longitudinal panel data, Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) (2001-2018) and ABS Census Longitudinal Data (2016), the study will explore temporal and spatial distributions of (i) CLEs and their likely impact on undesirable housing outcomes such as financial, mobility and housing tenure outcomes

Lead Researcher: Dr Milad Ghasri, University of New South Wales

Project Number: 71266