Overview
Mission Australia and Mission Australia Housing work towards and advocates for an Australia where everyone has the foundation of a safe and secure home that enables them to thrive.
While many Australians have benefited from strong growth in house prices over recent decades, others face considerable barriers to home ownership, high rent prices, and an increased risk of homelessness.
Housing inequity is most acute for low-income private renters who face the challenges driven by low vacancy rates, rapid rent escalation and tenure insecurity. These challenges are exacerbated by the significant shortage of social and affordable housing, caused by decades of underinvestment, and the inadequacy of income support and private rental assistance.
Difficulties in the private rental market are experienced across the generational divide. For example, younger people and older people – especially older women – both face disadvantage due to unaffordability and discrimination. For this reason, it is important that work to address the housing crisis does not turn into a ‘battle of the generations’, positioning one cohort against another.
Mission Australia makes the following recommendations to address housing inequity for Australians of all ages on low incomes and income support:
- Make a long-term commitment to annual rounds of the HAFF, with an investment 4 times the current $10 billion to continually increase housing supply until it meets demand
- Pair social and affordable housing with sustaining tenancy funding to provide appropriate wraparound supports to prevent people experiencing or re-experiencing homelessness
- Remove the youth housing penalty to align young tenants’ rents with those of older people in line with the Home Time Campaign’s recommendations