Shelter NSW has called on the NSW Government to act on two key recommendations from a report tabled in State Parliament yesterday.
The association’s executive officer, Mary Perkins, welcomed the report’s recognition that the current social housing system was not able to assist low-moderate income households experiencing housing unaffordability.
Shelter called on the State Government to act on the Inquiry’s recommendation for transfer of ownership of some public housing dwellings to community housing providers where those community housing providers had the opportunity to increase housing stock. These opportunities derive from community housing providers having the capacity to leverage housing assets to attract private finance for new housing projects.
Another recommendation that is important for the Government to act on, according to Ms Perkins, is incentives for private landlords to provide more low-rental housing. She said there was a serious shortage of low-rent housing available for low-income earners in the private rental market: there is a deficit of some 36,000 housing units available for low-moderate income private renters in New South Wales.
The reason the private rental landlords should have a greater role in providing low-rent rental housing is because the social housing capacity is not able to do what many people want from it. As the report notes, “Strong demand is not being matched by strong growth in social housing.”
The people who are losing out are low-moderate income earners who cannot access home ownership because of high prices, and who are not poor enough to be eligible for social housing.
‘The Government needs to respond to this now endemic problem by encouraging the community housing sector and private landlords and investers to provide housing products that meet that need.’ Ms Perkins said.
The Report on the Inquiry into the Allocation of Social Housing was prepared by the Legislative Assembly Public Bodies Review Committee and was tabled in the Assembly on 26 October 2006.
Contact:
Mary Perkins, Executive Officer – 0419 919 091 (m), 9267 5733 ext.14
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