Australia faces a social housing time bomb, with a looming shortfall of almost 200,000 homes by 2031 unless the Federal Government begins investing now.
In Victoria, there are currently 50,839 people on the social housing waiting list. Despite significant state government investment in social housing, there will still be a projected shortfall leaving 49,056 Victorians locked out of social housing over the next 10 years with population growth.
A report released today by Compass Housing Services finds state governments have limited capacity to house the people on their respective waiting lists and no capacity to cater for future demand.
Report lead-author Professor David Adamson said despite good intentions the states had lost control of the issue and the problem was now too big for them to handle with 196,000 new social housing units across Australia needed by 2031.
"There are approximately 169,000 households on social housing waiting lists across Australia and under the current system most of them will never be allocated a property," he said.
"Over the next decade the states and territories are planning to build just 66,000 social housing properties. Even if they hit their targets, they will have undershot the existing level of demand by 60%, or more than 100,000 homes.
"If you include the additional demand from population growth over the period in question the shortfall increases to more than 196,000 homes."
Report co-author Martin Kennedy said the problems facing the social housing system were part of a broader housing crisis that had been building for 30 years.
"Home ownership rates have collapsed, the share of renters in housing stress is increasing and social housing waiting lists are out of control," he said. "The Commonwealth insists social housing is a state responsibility, but that arrangement isn't working."
"If we keep expecting the states to fix a problem that is clearly beyond them, an increasing proportion of the population will experience socially damaging levels of inequality and financial hardship.
Everybody's Home national spokesperson, Kate Colvin, said federal intervention was urgent.
"The federal-state blame game is arid and gets us nowhere. A ballooning number of Australians on low and middle incomes simply cannot compete for housing in the booming private sales and rental market.
Martin Kennedy 0418 353 913
Nick Lucchinelli 0422 229 032
