Systemic advocacy
To promote a fairer housing system, Shelter undertakes
research, consultations, policy development, representation
on advisory committees, lobbying, coordinating community-based
responses, and liaison with the media, politicians,
government agencies and other community organizations.
We do not provide emergency accommodation. If
you are seeking housing assistance, please see our list of
agencies who can help you.
Federal election
You can find resources about the federal
election on the website of our national organization, National
Shelter. more…
Somewhere to call home
We are running a campaign to deliver better housing
for low-income people in New South Wales, called 'Somewhere
to call home'. Our focus is on projects that can achieve
specific results in the following areas:
- responsive public housing services by Housing NSW
- increased supply/expansion of social housing:
- homelessness and its links with housing unaffordability
- download article from Parity (pdf,
157 kb)
- sustainable homeownership for low-income households:
- increased private supply/expansion of private rental housing for low rental:
- state environmental planning policies and affordable housing:
As part of the development of our campaign, we
conducted a series of regional
workshops in 2008: see our report
(Shelter Brief 38) – download (pdf, 217 kb).
For more information about our campaign process, please
see our strategic
plan which is shaping our work till 2011 – download (pdf, 40 kb).
Campaign to increase social housing funding in
2009
The Commonwealth government announced a Nation Building
Economic Stimulus Plan that included
a much-needed allocation of $5,988 million for the construction of 20,000 new
social housing dwellings on 2 February 2009. This package also included $400
million for repairs and maintenance to 2,500 public housing dwellings. At the
time Shelter NSW welcomed this expenditure as long overdue
and noted that this was the sort of commitment needed on an ongoing basis rather
that as a one-off emergency measure.
On August 27 the government announced
a cut to the social housing part of the stimulus package:
it announced that $750 million would be redirected
to education. more… National
Shelter, the Australian Council of Social Service and
the Community Housing Federation of Australia protested
against the funding cut. For National Shelter's response,
click here…
There were rumors of a possible second cut to the social housing component
of the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. On October 20, National Shelter,
the Australian Council of Social Service, the Community Housing Federation of
Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions urged the Commonwealth Government
to ensure that social housing is protected from any further withdrawal of stimulus
package funding. more… Thank
you very much to all who wrote to the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and your
local federal Member of Parliament to request that there were no further cuts
to the social housing component of the stimulus package.
History of our letter-writing campaign for social
housing funding in 2008
From August to November 2008, we conducted a letter-writing campaign to influence the funding priorities of the National Affordable Housing Agreement.
When the Australian Labor Party was in opposition, it was highly critical of the Howard government for having withdrawn $3.5 billion from the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. The National Affordable Housing Agreement presented an opportunity to right that wrong, and so we suggested that you write letters proposing specific housing targets and commitments, to your federal member of parliament and to members of Cabinet.
We called for support for the six recommendations proposed by the national
non-government organizations involved in the National Housing Advocacy Day on
24 September 2008 – National Shelter, ACOSS, the Community Housing Federation
of Australia and Homelessness Australia:
- A growth target should be established involving an increase in the stock of public and non-profit housing by 30,000 additional dwellings by 2012.
- An Affordable Housing Growth Fund should be established with funding of $7.5 billion over four years strictly earmarked for expanding the stock of public and non-profit housing, contributed on a proportional matching basis by the Commonwealth and the states/territories.
- An Operating Subsidy Program should be established, with funding of $3.5 billion over four years provided by the Commonwealth.
- These funding arrangements will require approximately $5 billion over four years above funding currently provided by the Commonwealth and state/territory governments through the Commonwealth–State Housing Agreement.
- New stock should meet standards relating to quality, disability accessibility and energy efficiency.
- Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) should be reviewed to ensure that it best meets the needs of all low-income renters. As a first step, the maximum rate of CRA should be increased by 30% (approximately $15.00 per week) for low-income households currently receiving the highest rate of CRA, at a cost of $500 million per annum.
You can download the National Housing Advocacy Day position statement (pdf, 65 kb), background paper (pdf, 115 kb) and housing case studies paper (pdf, 571 kb).
At a meeting on 29 November 2008, the Council of Australian Governments
(COAG) agreed to funding arrangements under a new National Affordable Housing
Agreement, as well as National Partnership payments on social housing, homelessness
and remote Indigenous housing. more… The
agreement replaced the Commonwealth–State Housing Agreement and covers funding for public housing, community housing, crisis accommodation assistance,
Indigenous rental housing assistance and the Supported Accommodation Assistance
Program from January 1.
The Commonwealth Government is to be congratulated for the new money and initiatives focusing on the housing problems of the homeless and low and middle-income Australians. However the funding arrangements agreed to by COAG in November 2008 did not address the financial sustainability of the social housing sector.
The main funding priorities of COAG at its November 2008 meeting were health and
education … but good health and education start with a house. Health
and education outcomes can only be sustained if housing needs are met – and
the current supply of housing which is affordable for low and moderate-income
households is grossly inadequate. It is not possible for many low and moderate-income
households to house themselves affordably and adequately in the private market, and government
assistance is required. It is not possible for the social housing sector to rise to this critical
challenge without a substantial and long-term increase in funding.
Following our long-running campaign for increased
social housing funding and campaigning by others, and
in response to the economic environment, the Commonwealth
Government announced on February 3 the allocation of
$6.6 billion:
- to fund the construction of approximately 20,000 new public and community housing dwellings
- to fund repairs to around 2500 public housing dwellings
- for Defence Housing Australia to construct 802 new dwellings
In December 2008, we also encouraged you to write to the Commonwealth Treasurer, calling for sufficient funds to be allocated in the 2009–10 Budget to facilitate the financial sustainability of the social housing sector and to enable growth to meet community need. We also argued that a significant increase in spending on social housing would provide a useful stimulus to the economy in these challenging financial times.
You can download a summary of Commonwealth
initiatives on housing assistance since 2008, here (pdf, 50 kb).
How we work
Our advocacy work has two strands:
- proactive advocacy work, comprised of our ‘Somewhere to call home’ campaign
- responsive advocacy work, using the following strategies:
- writing submissions in response to inquiries and other requests
- writing in support of other organizations' submissions and requests
- contributing to the work of non-government boards and committees
For more details on details on our advocacy and other work, you can download our strategic plan for 2008-2011 (pdf, 40 kb).
If you would like to join our campaigns or be informed about our educational work, please send us your name, organisation and email address: admin[at]shelternsw.org.au.
Updated
19-Jul-2010
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