Who we are

Established in 1975, Shelter NSW is the State's peak housing policy and advocacy organisation.

We are independent. We promote social justice. We lead and collaborate. We value expertise and evidence.

Interested in the history of housing activism and the birth of Shelter NSW? Download the Champions of Change eBook by Dr Tony Gilmour.

3 year Shelter NSW membership now available

What a year it's been.

SEPP 70 has been extended to all Councils across NSW.

1,900 people turned up to the Sydney Alliance & The Everybody's Home Town Hall Assembly demanding more social and affordable housing, and access to clean and affordable energy.

We've started a conversation with the NSW Government on inclusive planning and development through our partnerships with SSROC on the Cities for Us Summit.

Together with sector partners we kept housing justice and other social justice issues on the political agenda during the NSW and Federal elections.

These are some of the outcomes we have achieved over the last 12 months with the support of our members and partners.

Become a member of Shelter NSW - keep up to date on housing issues; participate in housing justice campaigns; contribute to our advocacy and policy work; receive discounted prices on our events; participate in the governance of our association; and help us to make a difference.

Our new membership fee structure now offers significant savings for 3 year membership subscriptions.

You can download a copy of the membership form or apply online here.

Councils' Local Strategic Planning Statements

Wondering what your local council is thinking about the challenge of housing affordability, now and into the future?

Recent changes to NSW planning law require each council to prepare a 20 year vision for land use, called a Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS). This is part of a longer-term review of Local Environmental Plans that should lead to the implementation of Affordable Rental Housing Targets.

For the 33 Greater Sydney based councils, the Greater Sydney Commission requires a Local Housing Strategy to be developed as well. The LSPS will give us some clues as to what each council's housing strategy will include, and just how seriously they are taking the challenges of affordable housing.

Sydney based councils need to have their LSPS on exhibition for public feedback - for a minimum of 28 days - by October 1st 2019. Many of them have already started the process.

Help us keep track of what your local council is planning!

Click here to read about our principles for Local Strategic Planning Statements, and to find out where your local council is up to with the LSPS-making process. Let us know if you're planning to give them some feedback.

Shelter NSW Brief: More evidence of system-wide failures in housing

Poor quality housing and low income households
In response to an increasing trend towards higher-density living across Sydney and New South Wales, Shelter NSW commissioned the “Equitable Density” research project in 2016. Three reports from the project were published by the UNSW City Futures Research Centre in 2017, each focusing on issues for lower income and disadvantaged households at a different urban scale in a dense city – being the building, neighbourhood, and metropolitan scales.

At the building scale, it was concluded that “building quality is a concern for many lower income and vulnerable households living in higher density housing. Concerns encompass design quality, construction quality and building maintenance.”[1] In light of this, we commissioned the City Futures Research Centre to conduct additional research to explore these concerns in more detail. A report from this new research has now been published, along with an accompanying article in The Conversation.

The Poor-quality housing and low-income households: review of evidence and options for reform project asks “why does having good quality housing matter?” It looks at a number of sources to consider the extent of housing quality problems, queries how these are or could be addressed by policy and regulation, and identifies a number of current issues and directions for reform.

Within the context of a broader body of work, our research is more evidence of system wide failures in housing.

Download the report here, or find the summary on our blog and read the Shelter NSW Brief on our new research and the current "crisis of confidence" in building quality here.

"Many organisations have a clear history, being established on a particular date in a
specified location by a known group of people.
Not so for Shelter, or National Shelter.
Both organisations emerged gradually and informally,
as befit collectives formed by activists keen for change."

Champions of Change by Dr Tony Gilmour