FACS: Alternative waiting list figure

On 20 March 2018 NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) Housing placed on their website updated information about waiting lists, which is now current to 30 June 2017.

They call it the 'Social Housing Expected Waiting Times dashboard' and the link is here.

The dashboard does not show historical figures, but the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services shows the waiting list at 30 June 2017 across New South Wales has dropped significantly.

Source: Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, 'Report on government services 2018', Productivity Commission, 23/1/18, Table 18A.5. Figures for 2012 to 2012 from previous reports. (You can view Table 18A.5 here.) This data excludes people who have applied for community housing only. Most applicants in NSW may be offered either community housing or public housing.

This news is too good to be true. As mentioned in our blog here, figures for 30 June 2017 exclude 'suspended applicants'. Suspended applicants won't be offered properties during suspension, but unlike closed applications, if their suspension ends their waiting time will be counted from the original registration of their application.

One way of thinking of the difference is that suspended applicants are assumed to want and be eligible for social housing, but there is currently a reason not to offer them a property. Closed applicants are assumed not to want or be eligible for public housing. For more detail see the 'Managing the NSW Housing Register Policy' page.

FACS Housing's dashboard has separated out 'General' and 'Priority' applications and also has made a notation that their figure for 30 June 2017 excludes 'suspended' applications and, accordingly, 'this data is not strictly comparable to published data in previous years'. Check here.

FACS Housing kindly has supplied the number of suspended applications at 30 June 2017. These stand at 5,499.

So, the total number of applicants on the waiting list at 30 June 2017 arising out of the additional information supplied by FACS Housing = 'General' + 'Priority' + 'Suspended' = 51,453 + 4,496 + 5,499 = 61,448.

The alternative waiting list figure at 30 June 2017 is 61,448.

We now are able to compare waiting list figures from previous years.

Sources: For Productivity Commission data, see foot of previous histogram. For FACS Housing data for 30 June 2017, check here and for 30 June 2016, check here. For figures for 30 June 2012 to 30 June 2015, check similar links to the last one. The 2017 figures shown above for both agencies include the 5,499 suspended applications. We have added these because suspended applications were included in previous years.

There has been a steady increase in waiting list numbers over the last five years. Indeed, FACS Housing's waiting list figures show an increase of just over 10 per cent in this period. This does not bode well for the future. Check out Nigel Gladstone’s recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald here on why more people are joining a decade-long wait for public housing in a queue that stretches past 55,000 people ... we say past 60,000 people.

Postscript

It is unclear why the waiting list figures published in Table 18A.5 of the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services (51,571) and those now published by FACS Housing (55,949) vary. Both exclude the number of suspended applications and both come from the same original source. Indeed, this has been the story for the last few years, although not so pronounced.

Further notations in Note (d) of Table 18A.5 here may tell some of the story:

- waitlist data should be used with caution as over counting may stem from the use of a single integrated social housing waiting list (since 2010) for public housing and SOMIH (which includes those who have also applied for community housing, but not applicants for community housing only).

- fewer waitlist applications were closed in 2015-16 because a review and redesign of the annual Housing Eligibility Review (HER) process delayed its completion until 2016-17. Data for 2016-17 may not be comparable to 2015-16 due to outstanding data remediation at that time.

FACS Housing inner city exclusion policy won't work

A couple of weeks back you may have seen news reports that people convicted of drug supply or drug manufacture offences will now be excluded from public housing in a number of inner city Sydney suburbs.

FACS Housing announced the new Inner City Local Allocation Strategy at the end of February and immediately sent out letters to applicants on the waiting list for inner city areas. The letters informed applicants they are now required to consent to a criminal record check if they want to be considered for housing in Redfern, Waterloo, Surry Hills and Glebe. If they are found to have any drug dealing or drug manufacture convictions within the last 5 years applicants will then be excluded from these locations, although they may be offered a property in other inner city suburbs.

The strategy was introduced with no consultation with the range of organisations that generally assist the applicants, particularly those who will be impacted by its introduction. It is also unclear whether any consultation occurred with the residents of the local communities affected.

If we had been asked we would have told FACS straight out - we think this is bad policy. The strategy is deeply flawed and won't achieve the outcomes the Government is hoping for.

To begin with the strategy could be unlawfully discriminatory. In the Guardian story linked above, Community Restorative Centre points out the policy will disproportionately impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants who make up 25% of people released from prison in the affected areas, as well as applicants with psycho-social disability (for example issues with mental health and/or addiction). It is not just those who have convictions who will be excluded, but also applicants who don't consent to a criminal record check or simply don't respond to the initial letter requesting consent to undertake the check. And we know there are a range of reasons - poor literacy or language barriers, change of address, illness, and so on - why vulnerable applicants might be flagged as 'no response' in the system and excluded on that basis.

What will be the impact for applicants in the area? Those who are excluded from Redfern, Waterloo, Surry Hills and Glebe because of a prior conviction will effectively be blacklisted from 77% of the public housing in the 'CS1' (Inner Sydney) area. By funneling a greater proportion of people into a smaller number of properties (the remaining 23% in Inner Sydney locations), this may mean a longer time spent on the waiting list to get into other housing in the area. There were 1740 applicants on the list for CS1 at 30 June 2017 and 5-10 year waiting lists for all property types.

Apart from the lack of consultation before its introduction, the strategy has also appeared to be rushed in its drafting and implementation. The only policy documentation that FACS has pointed towards when they've been asked for more detail on the strategy are a basic factsheet on FACS' website and a reference within their current Eligibility and Allocations policy that simply states allocation of public housing properties may be subject to a Local Allocation Strategy. Neither of these offer much practical guidance or detail on how FACS expect the strategy will be implemented and administered.

The policy has changed in a few significant ways in the last month. It changed from only applying to estates to now covering whole suburbs, from being policy to 'a one year trial', and originally applied also to people who had only been charged with offences, this has since been dropped. The latter two changes are positive, and likely the result of significant pushback from the housing and homelessness, legal and community sectors.

But perhaps most concerning is the 'perpetual punishment' approach of the strategy - the way it further penalises an individual who has already been punished. Mindy Sotiri, Program Director at the Community Restorative Centre, told the Guardian Australia:

“The key thing for me [about the introduction of the strategy] is that this is a really troubling precedent that extends punishment beyond the judicial system, which really has not worked anywhere ...

The whole point of the work that we do is saying ‘you might have done something wrong, but you’ve done your time, and now we’re going to give you every opportunity to build a life that’s not about going to prison’.”

Excluding people from housing in certain areas - where they might already be accessing support or treatment services, have employment, or have family or friends or other established supports - has the potential to undermine their attempts to reintegrate with the community and rebuild their lives.

What does work? Appropriately resourcing the support services and programs that help empower individuals and communities to address the underlying and complex issues leading to drug use and/or dealing. As Sotiri told the Guardian:

“It’s not very exciting politics to say ‘we’re going to tackle homelessness now’ or ‘we’re going to put case managers into the estates’. None of that sounds very exciting or innovative, but it’s actually what’s required.”

Just the basics (or what we know about the Inner City Local Allocation Strategy so far)

Who does this affect?
This will affect you if you are currently on the waiting list or will be applying in future for public housing in the CS1 (Inner City) allocation zone and CS3 (Leichhardt Marrickville) allocation zone. All public housing applicants who wish to be housed in the CS1 or CS3 zones will be asked to 'consent' to have their criminal record checked.

This does not affect existing tenants in the area.

This does not affect existing tenants in another allocation zone applying for a transfer into the area.

This should not affect you if you are a tenant subject to a management transfer or are being forced to relocate during the redevelopment of the Waterloo Estate.

How does it work?

When applicants are nearing the top of the waiting list they will be sent an information letter and consent form requesting consent for FACS to undertake a check. After receiving the form applicants will have two weeks to return their forms.

The check will involve sharing of information only in relation to drug supply and/or manufacture. No information on other convictions will be sought from NSW Police or received by FACS. If applicants do not consent to the criminal record check they will not be considered for housing in Redfern, Waterloo, Surry Hills and Glebe. Applicants who refuse consent for a criminal record check may still receive offers for housing in other suburbs in the CS1 allocation zone.

If the criminal record check indicates an applicant has a criminal conviction for drug dealing or manufacture in the last 5 years they will be excluded from housing in Redfern, Waterloo, Surry Hill and Glebe. They may still receive offers for housing in other suburbs in the CS1 allocation zone.

The 5 years is counted from the date when FACS make the inquiry of the Police.

What if an 'excluded' applicant has a good reason for wanting to live in the area?
Applicants excluded because of prior convictions who have a compelling reason for wanting to live in the area can appeal. FACS has not provided clear guidance around this but reasons might include things like having children in school or childcare in the area, established relationship with support or treatment services, family supports. Connection to the area will be considered for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants. FACS has given some indication that requests for consideration will be sympathetically assessed.

Before requesting consideration on these grounds applicants will generally need to follow the general process and first consent to a criminal record check - though FACS has given some indication that if compelling reasons exist an applicant can approach directly to ask for an exemption from exclusion and avoid a criminal record check.

If excluded on the basis of a conviction an applicant can then appeal the decision and apply for consideration. FACS advises that internal reviews will be overseen by the district Director of Housing Services in the first instance. Applicants then have the right to an independent review by the Housing Appeals Committee if they don't think the decision was fair.

Need advice?
If you have received a letter about the Inner City Local Allocation Strategy and are worried about how it might impact you and/or require advice or assistance for an appeal against an exclusion get in touch with the local Inner Sydney Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service at Redfern Legal Centre.

FACS and figures: Delving behind the figures for the waiting list and new social housing dwellings

Post authored by Robert Mowbray, Policy Officer - Older Tenants.

On Monday, 5 March 2018 the Minister for Family and Community Services, Pru Goward, sent out a media release

Hundreds of people on the social housing waiting list and hundreds more will have access to brand new homes as the NSW Government continues to deliver on its promise to build more housing through the sale of properties in Millers Point. ... We are assisting vulnerable people by building new social housing. ... To date, the Government has completed construction on 775 new homes with a further 372 under construction ... funded through the sales program so far.

Let’s delve behind the figures for the waiting list ... and other vulnerable people, and for new social housing dwellings in this State.

Waiting list

At 30 June 2017 the social housing waiting list in New South Wales remains in excess of 50,000 applicants.

Source: Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, 'Report on government services 2018', Productivity Commission, 23/1/18, Table 18A.5. Figures for 2008 to 2012 from previous reports. (You can view Table 18A.5 here.)

The seriousness of this figure is reinforced by the fact that specialist homelessness services provided support to just under 75,000 people in New South Wales in 2016-17. (View Table CLIENTS.1 here.)

And, indeed, the recently released 2016 ABS Census ‘Estimating homelessness 2016’ data shows that the number of people who are homeless in New South Wales has soared by more than one third between the 2011 and 2016 censuses. On Census day in 2016 they numbered 37,715 people. You can check this out here. You can read more about this here.

In a recent article in The Conversation, Emeritus Professor Gavin Wood and others of RMIT University, assert that ‘public housing is the most important factor in preventing homelessness among vulnerable people’ and, further, ‘the empirical evidence also suggests that community housing fails to provide the same protection for people at risk of homelessness.’ Read their article here.

Yes, the Minister is correct in saying there are hundreds of people on the social housing waiting list. Indeed, over the last ten years this figure has been increasing. However, the figure at 30 June 2017 represents a decrease of 7,460 (12.6%) on the previous year’s. Note (d) in Table 18A.5 (referred to in the above figure) states that ‘data for 2016-17 exclude suspended applicants’. So what is meant by suspending an application? You will find the answer in a policy document here . FACS or a community housing provider participating in Housing Pathways may suspend (make non-active) an application for social housing or transfer for many reasons, including:

• Pending receipt of further information or proof of social housing eligibility or housing requirements.
• If a client is temporarily unable to accept an offer of accommodation because of:
  - being currently in prison;
  - illness, hospitalisation or holidays;
  - caring for a family member.

• If a client has a debt from a former social housing tenancy of more than $500
• If the client applying for a transfer has rental arrears, nuisance and annoyance breaches or any other tenancy breaches that are currently under investigation.

So, it appears that the reduction in the number of applicants on the waiting list in New South Wales over the last year may be due primarily to an ‘administrative cull’.

Other vulnerable people

No-one would disagree with the assertion that a very large number of people on the housing waiting list in New South Wales are vulnerable, given the state of the housing market.

But, let’s not forget the residents of Millers Point who were forced to re-locate.

Family and Community Services Housing kindly has provided the following information. At the beginning of the process there were 579 tenant and household members (in 399 tenancies) to be relocated. At 8 February 2018, 578 tenant and household members have either vacated or are committed to moving. One tenant is refusing to move. There are no tenancies remaining in the Sirius Building. During the course of the forced relocations, the sales of 28 properties in Millers Point were deferred. These were set aside for some of the remaining tenants and household members in November 2015. Of these, 21 are occupied by 19 tenancies.

The impact on the residents of Millers Point and the Sirius building who have been relocated has been traumatic for many. Their experiences have been documented by Professor Alan Morris in a report entitled ‘A contemporary forced urban removal: The displacement of public housing residents from Millers Point, Dawes Point and the Sirius Building by the New South Wales Government’, published by Shelter NSW here. Also, you may read Professor Morris's article called '"It was like leaving your family": Gentrification and the impacts of displacement on public housing tenants in inner-Sydney' in the Australian Journal of Social Issues here . In this article, Professor Morris places the events at Millers Point in a broader context. Watch this space for Professor Morris's forthcoming book with a similar title.

New dwellings

To meet such a massive need for social housing, it is worth asking whether there has been an increase in the number of such dwellings across New South Wales over the last three years.

We start to obtain a picture by looking at the Productivity Commission's 'Report on Government Services 2018' released in January 2018. Here we find the latest figures on the number of social housing dwellings across Australia. You can check these here . Table 18A.3 clearly shows that there was a net decrease in public housing stock in the three years to 30 June 2017 (latest published figures) by a figure of 584 dwellings.

Productivity Commission's 'Report on Government Services’ and other government data are not transparent about increases and what is affordable, as distinct from social housing.

Source: Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, 'Report on government services 2018', Productivity Commission, 23/1/18, Table 18A.3. See Note (d) for correction to figure for 2011.

Over the same period, there has been net increase in community housing dwellings of 2,754 (after deducting National Rental Affordability Scheme tenancy rental dwellings).

Source: Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, 'Report on government services 2018', Productivity Commission, 23/1/18, Table 18A.3. Community housing data include affordable housing. However, this table has been adjusted to omit National Rental Affordability Scheme community housing tenancy rental dwellings for 2016 and 2017, because these were omitted for previous years (see Note (d). Other affordable housing that is included is properties transferred over several years from the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Program.

A key question is how many public housing dwellings were transferred to community housing between 30 June 2014 and 30 June 2017. The Productivity Commission's report does not provide figures on the number of social housing dwellings transferred. Family and Community Services Housing advises that the number of properties transferred from public housing to community housing between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2017 was 679. This leaves us with an increase in community housing dwellings over the three year period of 2,075. Part of the increase in community housing stock in recent years comes from the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Program (NBESP). There are no published figures here.

So, there appears to be an increase in public housing of 95 dwellings, if we don’t count transfers to community housing.

Sales of Millers Point properties to 22 February 2018 number 172 (check here) and total $527.4 million (plus stamp duty of a further $28.3 million). You will find information about the public housing properties built with the proceeds of these sales here. 775 dwellings have been built up to January 2018, with another 372 under construction. To calculate the net gain from these proceeds, you will need to subtract 371 dwellings (399 less 28 retained dwellings) which represent the stock being lost in Millers Point.

Also, the number of public housing dwellings will have been reduced by properties demolished to allow for the new construction, and any dwellings removed from the stock as part of Communities Plus. These figures are unknown.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the need for social housing increases at least at the same rate as the population. (Indeed, in times of high housing stress, it should be greater) The rate of increase in social housing stock over the last three financial years is only a third of the rate of population growth in NSW.

Source: Population data from ABS at Jun 2014 and Jun 2017. Former viewed at: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/54A5E977BB10644CCA257E1300775B9B?opendocument Latter viewed at: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3101.0Main+Features1Jun%202017?OpenDocument

The construction of new dwellings from the proceeds of sales of Millers Point properties represents small growth only. Yes, we have seen a steady, but modest stream of new supply. So, what of the future?

There is slim hope that the Sirius building can be retained as social housing. In mid-February of this year, the Tenants’ Union of NSW forwarded a submission to the NSW Planning and Environment arguing that future use of the Sirius site incorporate significant proportions of social and affordable housing, in addition to any private ownership of residential dwellings that may be permitted within the building to help give it a viable financial future. You may read our submission on their website here.

It is disappointing that sales of public housing are used to give very modest increases in stock at a time when the NSW Government ran a budget with a substantial surplus and, accordingly, had available to it substantial, alternative funds for its building program. What is also noteworthy was the lack of consultation before the decision to sell in Miller's Point.

Let’s hope that the future is brighter. On 14 August 2017, the Minister Goward announced the successful tenderer for the Ivanhoe Estate at Macquarie Park where social housing dwellings will increase by more than three-fold – from 259 social to 950 social and 128 affordable dwellings. (You can read about this in a media release here.) The NSW Government is pressing ahead with its Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) as ‘an innovative approach to the way we are delivering social and affordable housing in NSW’. You may read more about it here. On 12 September 2017, Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Minister Goward announced that the Government had now committed to a target of 3,400 new social and affordable dwellings through this fund, following 2,200 announced in March 2017. Check here. On 7 Feb 2018 the NSW Government officially opened the Expressions of Interest for the second phase of its Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF), which will deliver up to 1,200 additional social and affordable homes. In this phase, at least 70% are to be social housing. Check here.

Home Truths

We're very pleased to present this guest appearance from Jennifer Stone, a renter in the Snowy Monaro region, who has recently started a group for renters in the region to connect and discuss local renters issues. The original version of this article was published on their Facebook page.

The home of the silenced

Snowy Monaro renters welcomes you to come into our place and sit with us a while. There is something vital we need to tell you, something which concerns us all.  If you come to know who we are and our situation, you will understand.

We come from diverse backgrounds, interests, beliefs and aspirations, yet we are a family, united by common experience. Though we are significant in number, we are marginalised, distained, unheard and unknown. We have no real shelter, but pay a high price to dwell where the walls of greed’s injustice over shadow us - and block us from a home.

We know our nations’ harsher reality, our nation’s pain. We offer you home truths, and hope you will hear us. Until we are heard, our nation is in plight.

Towns prosper when we prosper and whither when we thirst

While a substantial amount of our income goes to supporting landlords and real estates, we spend much that is left in our community. In this way we provide vital support to the local economy and help it stay afloat.  Our numbers have brought extra medical centres, high schools and supermarkets to service the community.

We work in almost every sector of the region. Our children represent a significant number of the student population in the regions’ schools.  Amongst us are also pensioners and those struggling to find jobs in our community. For those on social security payments without community or state housing, average rental costs are prohibitive. 

The economy is much impacted by the increasing and excessive rents in our region. Renters face great hardship and are struggling to find money for even the most essential items. There is a shortage of permanent rental properties appropriate to our means and needs.  As rents are becoming unaffordable, Snowy Monaro renters are increasingly forced to pay for sub standard housing with inefficient heating, lacking proper insulation. High power bills cripple our financial capacity.

If we complain at our conditions or at breaches by the landlord and real estate, we face eviction in retaliation, and inter real estate black lists. Indeed there is a special provision so landlords may give termination notices for “no grounds” – this is so the tenant can not argue their eviction (even with much evidence of retaliation by landlord and real estate).

As we are forced to leave a place and go to another, we have to find bond money, we lose pay days while moving and sick days from intense rental stress. Children suffer from such destabilisation, as does the whole community. In general we are in an ever growing inescapable cycle of debt. Our plight impacts the community’s well being as a whole. We see our regions’ potential for prosperity much diminished as rents become unaffordable - yet the financially powerful minority, seem blind to this.

We suffer from divisive and prejudicial myths

It seems there is a myth amongst some landlords who own local businesses that they are the backbone of the community. They say that renters are lowly “lazy”, “dirty”, drug addicted, poor “dole bludgers” who are beneficiaries of their “hard work”. They speak of us as second class citizens, less important than themselves. Some real estates call the renter “scum” and we know for sure they treat us as such.

Derogatory myths can create a painful reality. The myth that the majority of renters are financially poor has now come to express fact. As houses have become unaffordable, rent has become unaffordable. Both renter and mortgaged landlord share the pain of immense financial pressure, often in debt and living beyond their means – an economic climate stirred by the greed and power lust of just an elite few. This pressure has lead to an economy where those who have more financial wealth, gain more each day and those who have less financial wealth, lose more each day.

The average wage hardly changes while rents go up exponentially. Renters are paying their landlords’ mortgage along with their own increasing debts. Landlords who have no mortgage are greedily extorting tenants, renting out sub standard houses at excessive market prices. Such landlords hold shelter to ransom. As landlords increase their ability to buy yet another house, renters become more likely to never have a home. The myth that renters are lazy while landlords worked hard for what they have, purveys a great falsehood. Indeed, renters work doubly hard for what their landlords have! We are the hand that feeds the landlord, are we not?

Wisdom heals the prejudice and division

Those who have become financially impoverished are not worth less. The financially rich are not worth more.  There is nothing which can diminish the worth of any being.   All people are  intrinsically valid, necessary to each other and vital in their unique contribution. No one is better than or less than another. In truth we are really one, there is no division.

Everyone creates the community and all are responsible for the conditions of that community. Prejudicial myths inevitably create the worst of conditions for all. A myth which divides people by declaring some of greater worth and others of lessor worth, by any measure, must inevitably lead to a conflict for power and recognition. This conflict develops a ravishing greed which devastates and seeks to devalue all contesting its path. This in turn gives rise to mass poverty, disenfranchisement, marginalisation, cruelty and suffering.

A harmonious and prosperous community would grow, if it was understood that we are all equal yet unique, individual yet one. If all are seen of vital worth, no one would seek to devalue another nor make a house of greater value than the people who dwell there. Divisive myths of prejudice blind the powerful minority to their own truth and the truth of their nation. 

The home truths which can heal us – please listen, please hear us

We are your kin, your sisters and brothers, parents and grandparents, children, and, generations to come. We are one. In truth, we are you. What happens to any one happens to all.  No one is at home when all about them are homeless, paying for insufficient shelter, exposed to greed, extortion, repression, and eviction at a landlord’s whim.  A house which comes by way of life long debt or subjugation of another can never be a home for anyone. The nation cannot be at peace, when so many are unsettled.  

When values of decency are worth less than values of commodity our nation is impoverished.  Happiness, not commodity, is the measure of a nation’s wealth. A nation is truly wealthy when its people enjoy a peaceful home without fear of eviction, where all may contribute to society through unique expression, welcome in the nations embrace. A nation is not wealthy if its people are homeless, enslaved and in perpetual debt. If on paper a house is worth a million dollars, it is worth nothing to those who cannot call it home - that paper value serves no one if its cost destroys life. Money on a graph is not food we can eat and property on a graph is not a place to shelter.

Houses are homes and not commodity. Economists devoid of moral compass, call out triumphant when run down cottages sell at palatial prices - while homelessness ravages the nation. Who gains when the majority have no claim to home, striving to survive, and backs bent to power thirsty property managers who lack empathy, and distain ethics? How is it that the financially powerful minority of this nation sanctify greed without question – do they not see the greater part of their nations’ family in despair.  Muted acquiescence to raging greed makes all of us complicit in the theft of happiness from generations to come.

What we do to another we do to ourselves - when did people abandon this eternal guidance? The ancient truths have never changed, we reap what we sow. Seeds of kindness bear fruits of happiness, fulfilling and empowering all. When the nurturing harvest of this wisdom is ravaged, hunger for power grows, casting seeds which bear injustice, cruelty, drought and despair. 

There are elderly pensioners eating from cans of pet food to pay the rent, suffering the pain of eviction when the landlord sells for their needed profit, did you know? This is our pain as a nation, this is our home truth.

Let’s meet again and find a better way.

 By Jennifer Stone of Snowy Monaro Renters

There goes the neighbourhood - Renters in the Census 2016

This week saw the publication of new research from the ANU showing that the problems of housing affordability in Australia don't stem from an undersupply of housing. This is something we've been saying for years - it is not the overall supply that matters, but the kind of supply. Specifically, supply of housing for lower income people.

A few days earlier, the Urban Displacement project in the US updated their San Francisco maps. That project is looking at where people with lower incomes are going when they become priced out of the area they are living in. That updated prompted the crew at #WeLiveHere2017 to ask if anyone was doing similar work here.

@DallasRogers101 @jennacondie is anyone in Australia mapping displacement of low income households? https://t.co/1qDpiIsaSc

— #WeLiveHere2017 (@WeLiveHere2017) November 17, 2017

We thought this was definitely something worth looking into ourselves and we intend to devote a few posts to exploring this issue through crunching some Census data. This first post explores the very lowest income households. The following pictures are here for our mobile readers - they come from an interactive map available here where you can zoom in to any location in NSW and get more details.

We calculated the range of weekly household income for all households in NSW and found the first quintile, or lowest 20% of household incomes, in local areas (for the nerds, 2016 Statistical Area 2) across the state in both 2011 and in 2016.

Then we started looking at how many rental properties in local areas were reporting paying rents that would be affordable to that income level. This includes all forms of public and community housing, as well as private rentals. Using the 30% rule, in 2011 the lowest quintile could afford a property being rented at $155 per week. By 2016 this had risen to $198.30. The following two maps show the raw numbers of properties meeting that number across Sydney. About two thirds of these properties across the state are public or community housing.

Unlike all other rent price sources, such as bonds data and advertisements, the census exclusively measures sitting rents. This is significant in that it explains why some areas may have a higher number of these affordable premises than might be expected if you are used to looking at articles talking about rent movements.

Click the image for a larger picture or the interactive version here

Click the image for a larger picture or the interactive version here

The change is only slight when looking at these raw numbers, but the story becomes much more clear when we look at the change between the Censuses. Across Sydney the proportion of housing available for people on the lowest incomes is dropping - except in a few areas potentially indicating a concentration of this affordable housing.

Click the image for a larger picture or the interactive version here

However, we reckon there's a bit of a difference between an area with very few properties affordable to the lowest income quintile dropping and an area with quite a few affordable properties losing them (or gaining them). To explore that a bit more we've created a final map, which categorises the local areas into 12 groups depending on their placement on a scatter plot. This scatter plot measures on one axis the proportion of housing in the area which on Census night in 2011 was being rented at a rate that was affordable to households in the lowest income quintile and on the other the movement in the proportion of that affordable housing between 2011 and 2016 censuses.

The colour scheme divides those areas losing affordable housing into three equal sets and those areas gaining affordable housing into three equal sets. They are then further divided based on whether they have more or less than the median amount of affordable housing at the 2011 Census.

Once that scatter plot has been mapped we get the following map - zoomed in on Sydney here but the interactive version covers all of New South Wales.
Some of the areas that may seem surprising to appear in the affordable column are there because whilst they are generally affluent areas they do have concentration of public and community housing - or at least did. As one example the Hunters Hill - Woolwich statistical area comes up as affordable due to approximately 167 of the 683 total rental properties in the area being public or community housing - nearly 25%. This is a high proportion considering that across the state only a little over 15% of properties fall into this category.

Click the image for a larger picture or the interactive version here

So what do we learn?

In Sydney it is essentially a bad news story everywhere we turn - either there are unaffordable places getting worse or there are nominally affordable places getting worse. All that bright blue is areas with affordable housing disappearing. The orange is areas with unaffordable rentals that are disappearing. Across the state there appears to be a concentration of affordable housing occurring with most areas falling in the proportion of affordable housing but increases in pockets.

That these rents are sitting rents raises another concern - what happens when people are forced to move? Fortunately a high proportion of these properties are public or community housing but a significant number are in the private market. As such these are households who are in very vulnerable positions. If they do need to move, especially in the private rental sector, they are likely moving on to much higher rents as the market continues to rise.

This is an early version of this data - we haven't adjusted rents and income for household size for instance. It is clear that a single person on the same income as a household of five is more able to fit in a smaller dwelling more comfortably and likely in more affluent areas.

In the next version of these maps we'll be making these adjustments and drawing out the changes in public and community housing as well as looking at slightly higher income groups.

Uncertain futures - Renters in the Census 2016

The second round of the 2016 Census was released last week, and amongst employment, education and travel statistics there's the question of whether respondents had moved in the previous few years.

We took a look at this question across different tenure types. It probably comes as no surprise that renters in the private sector were nearly 3 times more likely to have moved in the last year as any other tenure type. In fact, more than a third of renters in New South Wales moved home in the last year.

In the last 5 years, more than three quarters of renting households had changed. This is entirely consistent with findings included in our latest Rent Tracker about the churn of rental bonds in NSW.

The story continues for people aged 60 years and over:

People who may particularly need to remain in a single home are, because they are in the private rental sector, three times as likely to have moved in just the previous year as any other tenure type. There were about 136,000 tenants aged 60 or over at the Census, meaning 23,000 had moved in the last year, and a further 44,000 in the last five.

This level of insecurity is unsustainable. Previously, people who were unable to purchase their own home in order to have housing stability and affordability in retirement would be able to rely on social housing. As above, movement in social housing is fairly comparable to owner occupiers, but years of under investment has meant it is reaching historically low levels.

As people are increasingly renting into retirement, change is needed to ensure private renting is stable, livable and affordable - primarily, the removal of unfair evictions.

Making sense of social housing in NSW

Social housing operates within a complex glob of morphing policies and procedures, prodded by occasional shifts in public policy at both a state and federal level that draw various laws, instruments and agreements into contact with one another in a range of ways. A sound working knowledge of the sector in its entirety can take years to develop, and once established could fall apart within an instant should one glance away at precisely the wrong moment.

A case in point is last year's announcement that the management of large swathes of tenanted public housing properties will be transferred to community housing landlords in New South Wales, in keeping with the Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA), which was negotiated during the early days of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Government era. The announcement of the Management Transfer Program sparked some discussion here on the Brown Couch, and across the broader sector, about just who these community housing landlords are. How do they come to be in the business of housing people from the public housing waiting list since they're not run by the Government of NSW?

The plot thickens, as the results of the Program's tendering process have now been announced. Over the next couple of years, management of around 14,000 tenanted public housing properties across six different regions is to be handed to nine community housing landlords who are already operating in other parts of the state. So... now is a good time to take a look at what it means to be a "social housing" landlord in New South Wales.

Given we've already mentioned the NAHA, we should note it is the intergovernmental agreement that determines who takes responsibility for what within our housing systems across Australia. As an agreement among the Commonwealth, state and territory governments it is a static document, although it is intended to be renegotiated and updated from time to time. It has been altered quite a bit since its series of predecessors first took form: established in the 1940's as the "Commonwealth State Housing Agreements" as something of a post-war nation building scheme; and it is currently being renegotiated as a "National Housing and Homelessness Agreement".

Regardless of form, or name, these agreements have generally all set out to achieve the same objective: to set the conditions under which the Commonwealth would give funding to the states to run their public housing schemes. These agreements have been broad enough to allow each state and territory to run their housing programs as they see fit, as indeed they do. A strong focus of the current agreement has been to shift the delivery of housing assistance and services away from government to the not-for-profit sector, and successive NSW Governments have responded - indeed contributed - by attempting to consolidate and build our community housing sector. Notably, this included the regulation of the sector in 2010, with a state based scheme that has since been replaced by the National Regulatory System for Community Housing. It also included the establishment of a single waiting list for housing assistance, accessible through a portal known as Housing Pathways, under which any participating landlord could both process applications for and make offers of subsidised rental housing to eligible households.

In this context our language and legislation has come to reflect the idea of "social housing". With this term we could be referencing either or both of its constituent parts: "public housing" or "community housing"; and for practical purposes the only difference is whether the landlord is the government or a not-for-profit agency who has been contracted by government to provide the same essential service. Of course, things become more complicated when we consider the public policy implications of this rhetorical shift, as it gives our still predominantly neoliberal governments easy cover to withdraw from the direct provision of public housing proper, and focus entirely on the setting of policy instead. They do this on the grounds that "community housing landlords are well placed and can do it better", although this is far from an established truth. While we can have no objection to the growth of this community housing sector, the fact that it only ever seems to happen at the expense of our established public housing provider is a simple reflection of the State's entrenched reluctance to pay for and provide social housing. Given the sector has spent the better part of a decade trying to attract private finance to its cause, it reflects a certain level of disinterest in housing-as-shelter from the profit-driven private sector as well - as an aside, it will be interesting to watch how the emerging "build-to-rent" discussion proceeds from here.

Right - so while all of that is going on at the higher level, there is a somewhat consistent legal framework setting the scene in the meantime for social housing landlords and tenants across New South Wales. Although with the right political will the statutes under which social housing policies are determined can be changed - as we have seen throughout the last couple of years with mandatory evictions for social housing tenants and the introduction of concurrent leasing by the Land & Housing Corporation to enable the current Management Transfer Program - keeping tabs on the legislative framework can be a useful way to maintain one's bearings while trying to make sense of social housing.

The Residential Tenancies Act 2010 devotes an entire Part to social housing tenancy agreements, a discrete form of residential tenancy agreement to which a number of additional provisions apply. This Act defines a social housing tenancy agreement as "a residential tenancy agreement where the landlord is a social housing provider", and then defines a social housing provider as:

• the New South Wales Land & Housing Corporation
• the Aboriginal Housing Office
• a registered community housing provider within the meaning of the Community Housing Providers National Law (NSW)
• an organisation for the time being registered under Part 5 of the Aboriginal Housing Act 1998
• an organisation or a member of a class of organisation prescribed by the regulations

This immediately brings a number of other statutes into play. There's the Housing Act 2001, under which the Land & Housing Corporation is established as the legal entity that enters into residential tenancy agreements and other related dealings in residential property on behalf of the government; and under which the income based rental subsidy scheme is established. This is the legislation that gives us public housing, and it is amendments to this legislation that has enabled the emergence and establishment of community housing over many years.

There's the Community Housing Providers (Adoption of National Law) Act 2012, under which regulation of the community housing sector is provided by adoption of the Community Housing Providers National Law. This Act brings New South Wales into the National Regulatory System for Community Housing and, in some circumstances, allows the government to conditionally transfer title from the Land & Housing Corporation to a registered community housing provider. Note this has fallen out of fashion as concurrent leasing has come into play, having been made available by amendment to the Housing Act in 2016. For the time being property is being transferred to the community housing sector using this form of head-lease, but transfer of title under the Community Housing Providers (Adoption of National Law) Act remains an option.

Finally there's the Aboriginal Housing Act 1998, under which the Aboriginal Housing Office is established along similar lines to the Land & Housing Corporation, but with a specific remit to develop policy and deliver subsidised housing for Aboriginal households who rent. This Act also allows regulation of a broader Aboriginal Community Housing sector, for whom the National Regulatory Scheme for Community Housing is also being brought into play. By association, we must mention the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983, under which Local Aboriginal Land Councils who provide rental housing to their members may register with the Aboriginal Housing Office or the National Regulatory Scheme for Community Housing in order to have the requirements for approval to run a community benefits scheme that includes the provision of residential accommodation to their members waived by the NSW Aboriginal Lands Council.

The policy framework in which social housing operates is likely to keep changing, and where required legislative changes will sometimes follow. But for now, the above provides an overview of social housing in New South Wales. We'll keep an eye on the development of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, and take further note of any impact it might make.

In the meantime we'll do our best to answer any questions left in the comments, or sent through to us via the usual channels.