Quantifying impacts of post-2020 social and affordable housing development programs

After more than two decades of generally minimal growth, the 2020s are seeing a substantial and sustained infusion of new public investment into Australia’s social housing system. As a result, the sector is set to grow on a scale unparalleled since the 1980s.

Quantifying the national impact of this expanded social housing investment is, however, impeded by fundamental gaps in officially reported data. This study therefore collected surveyed state and territory governments to secure unpublished housing construction, acquisition, sales and demolitions statistics. These were amalgamated with official federal government investment program targets.

The resulting Working Paper estimates social housing sector growth in the five years to 2024-25, and in the decade to 2029-30. These estimates are contextualised in relation to the scale of public housing construction over preceding decades, and to the scale of unmet need for social housing.

The Paper also disaggregates projected overall sector growth during the 2020s according to whether funded by the federal government or by state and territory governments. It also estimates the split between public and community housing within the overall numbers of homes built or acquired for social housing in the first half of the decade.

It concludes by highlighting a number of policy challenges for the future – not only the need to, at least, maintain investment at levels far exceeding those of the previous decade, but also the case for complementary reforms of social housing governance and regulation.

The working paper can be accessed via the link provided below.