Oct 16th FAIN Forum: Turn Back Injustice – Expand Public Housing as a Fundamental Human Right, Jack Verdins

Introduction: The Numbers

Victoria

30,000 homeless, 10% rough sleepers
Probably higher since rental crisis, squeezing people into homelessness into tents, cars, Murray river
Currently about 60,000 applications on the housing waiting list = 120,000 people

Priority Access income cap = $33,000 singles, $57,000 couples, with 2 kids $61,000

Priority to Homeless, Family Violence, Disability, Health reasons

Priority to anyone else wanting to live in SH

Australia Public Housing as Portion of Total Build

1956 = 22% post world war
1950s to 1996 built 8,000 to 14,000 annually
2019 = 1%
2024 = 0%
Result of Keating economic rationalism. Leave it to the private sector to step up.

The Social Housing numbers in Victoria

65,000 public housing properties (same as 20 years ago), about 10% are towers
24,000 community housing homes, up from 11,000 in 2009
Victoria is lowest investing state in Australia 2.7%, NSW is 4.5%, SA is 5.5%

Terminology: Social Housing (SH), Public Housing (PH), Community Housing (CH), and Affordable Housing (AH)

PH = 25% income and the government owns/leases the property and is landlord

Slowly getting privatized … to be run by CHOs
And spare public land to be siphoned off to developers
Take applicants from the housing registration list (and other than for emergency situations the wait is 2 years or more out to 10 years for some.
NOTE: many eligible people don’t bother registering (so demand may be double the registrations)

SH = in a term by politicians in the 2 major parties, providers of privately run subsidized housing known as Community Housing Organisations (CHOs), developers, and the lobbyists for the above.

Officially it is an umbrella term for PH and CH, just like schools, or hospitals are umbrella terms, but can be broken down into public and private institutions.
It is of no use when only CH is involved, except to imply PH is involved.

CH = 30% of income + sundries + Commonwealth Rental Assistance (CRA) ren by private businesses.

Victoria has 50 registered CHOs (10 Housing Associations, 40 Housing Providers)
Influx of businesses vs ones with religious or charitable background in the past.
Many are becoming hardnosed NFPs with retained earnings (profit) and growth focus.
Evict rapidly, no troublesome residents, typically take applicants higher up the income scale from housing register

AH = has many definitions and can change rapidly. In Victoria is is rental at 10 per cent below the area’s median market rent in Victoria. Was 80% until changed overnight on the Homes Victoria website redefinition.

Often comes with compromise on zoning laws to increase density
Often run by CHOs
Sunset clause of say 5 or 10 years and then revert to market rental
NOTE: this is regarding rental housing and not purchase

Victoria

Stigmatization … even the SH word seems to imply something nicer than PH

Few druggies and mental cases. e.g. Flemington Towers COVID lockdown
Running down of maintenance of Public Housing. E.g. Half the lifts did not work at the Flemington Towers when the state of the site was exposed during COVID

The Public Housing Renewal Program

Housing on prime land given to developers to erect towers for profit plus 10% more SH
11 low-rise estates across Melbourne. Contract for first 3 estates 227 PH homes go to 1061 CH and private dwellings on the land.
Walker Street in Northcote has seen a vibrant community about to be replaced with CH tower facing High Street and with loss of about 30% of bedrooms compared to the PH it is replacing. Meanwhile private apartment towers face Walker Street or back onto Merri Creek with views to the city and with a price tag of $3M for top floor apartments.

The Big Housing Build announced 2020

$5B over 5 years for 8,000 SH and 4,000 AH … note this is against a waiting list of 60,000
Heaps of public land donated or on extended leases (say 40 years for instance)
Missing the build target by 30%, with finish delayed to 2030

The lobbyists

CHOs and developers trying to extract what they can out of the government
22 February 2022 1.75% tax on large developments to pay for SH, scrapped on 1 March 2022 after outcry from developers. Rarely does the Andrew’s government backflip!
Even researchers and think tanks are usually funded by industry or government.
Homelessness industry of service providers and crisis accommodation never lobby for PH, just CH under the guise of SH
No voice for PH, even though it is the cheapest option (privatisation dilemma).

The Banking Lobby (see charts at end)

23% of lending was housing in 1990, now 65%-70%.
20% in UK, 35% in Canada, Norway nearest at 45%

Dan Andrews parting gift, last day in office

Pull down of 44 towers – Flemington is the first.
10,000 residents impacted
The PH is replaced with new CH (plus 10%) plus double that (for example) of privately owned or rented dwellings as an incentive for the developer to invest.
The government pays for the demolition. Contracts have been signed with John Holland for $100m to demolish towers in Carlton, North Melbourne and Flemington at a cost of about $10M per tower.
An earlier proposal for Flemington that was fought against by the residents and community was for an extra 825 private dwellings.

Latest from Canberra

Housing Australia Future Fund

$10B invested over 5 years
$500M maximum per year returned to fund CH and AH
30,000 property target, so funding is for $83,000 per property
Greens squeezed $3B extra (SH Accelerator Fund) out of Albo to approve it

Shared Equity Scheme

Golden lottery of 10,000 opportunities a year out of 5.5Million renters
Earning cap and home price cap impractical re mortgage stress at current interest rates
Nurses and child-care workers would be paying 60% of wage to mortgage
Numerous experts debunk it – will only raise prices for everyone else
NOTE: states previously had similar schemes and have cancelled them to defer to Canberra.

Build to Rent Developments

Massive increase in tax breaks for investors
10% of development must be affordable defined as being uunder 75% of market rent for the other dwellings in the development. This is hardly affordable to the most needy with new development often priced well higher than existing rentals in the area.
Encouraging overseas investors (consortiums) of the usual hedge funds and venture capitalists who own our medical, energy, mining and other industries
Corporate landlords, up to 27% rent premium bragged about in studies

Victorian Housing Register applications: