Stronger together in addressing Australia’s acute housing crisis

With recent calls for the Australian government to legislate housing as a human right, especially to take responsibility for homelessness and provide enough community housing for the vulnerable, now is the time to pause and consider how we address housing.

A 10-year strategy has also been developed by the newly formed government agency, Homes Victoria that is responsible for managing the state’s community housing system.

The agency will use the $5.3 billion package announced in November last year as a lever to ‘reset housing policy’ and build over 12,000 community housing dwellings in amongst regenerating its $27 billion housing portfolio.

More importantly, the agency is focused on engaging with property developers and superannuation funds to create mixed-income housing, including the delivery of affordable build to rent housing.

“We will be working with the private sector and with super funds trying to use the weight, heft and size of our asset base and investment potential to really push affordable housing,” Homes Victoria Chief Executive, Ben Rimmer shared recently.

Homes for change–our recently launched housing agenda–is focused on addressing our nation’s critical housing shortage, and our recent announcement of our partnership with Housing Choices Australia offers a solution for many Australians needing secure tenure housing.

Collaboration is critical in building change. Our partnership demonstrates how the private and not-for-profit community housing sector can work in unison to deliver real solutions to Australia’s acute housing shortage.

The partnership with Housing Choices Australia sees a minimum of 20% of community housing (targeting low income-households) integrated into our affordable rental development sites (targeting low-to-moderate-incomes households).

“We have forged a strong ongoing relationship with Housing Choices Australia which will provide some 3,300 dwellings for low-income families and individuals.”

“Such cornerstone partnerships are vital to ensure inclusive, socially diverse and sustainable communities can thrive, and with the additional government support on the table, there has never been a better time to reinvigorate our state’s housing,” says Tom Billings, Director of Partnerships at Assemble.

Assemble is dedicated to developing relationships with housing organisations, socially-minded investors, and government authorities to help solve Australia’s housing affordability crisis.