Salvos continue call for a national housing and homelessness plan

There was great optimism within the sector concerning Senator David Pocock’s private senator’s bill — The National Housing and Homelessness Plan Bill 2024 (No. 2) (bill), until the Economics Legislation Committee recommended that it not be passed on 15 November 2024.

Among other things, the bill sought to improve the governance and accountability of national housing policies and proposed a process for the Australian Government to develop, implement and maintain a rolling 10-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan (NHHP).

Over many decades, The Salvation Army has evolved as one of the largest providers of social programs and services, and one the largest providers of homelessness support services in Australia.

Annually, The Salvation Army provides almost 1.1 million crisis beds and more than 340,000 sessions of care to people at risk of or experiencing homelessness, as well a range of specialist services within family and domestic violence support and services for young people.

Through our years of providing services in the homelessness and community housing, family and domestic violence and youth services sector, emergency relief (Doorways), financial counselling (Moneycare) and alcohol and other drug services throughout Australia, we have witnessed the many drivers and consequences of housing insecurity and homelessness across the country.

From the breadth and depth of our frontline service delivery experience, and supported by abundant external research, data and media reporting, The Salvation Army has formed the clear view that unaffordable housing and homelessness needs to be addressed through the development of a comprehensive national housing and homelessness plan.

While it remains unclear how the government’s current housing policy platform represents a joined-up and strategic approach to addressing the multitude, and sometimes, disparate issues that fuel homelessness and housing affordability, we still welcome the Australian Government’s commitment to a housing and homelessness plan and the policy and funding measures announced to date.

Why a national plan?

In the context of rising housing insecurity and homelessness resulting from unprecedented property price increases, the lack of affordable private rentals and critical social housing deficits, these drivers of homelessness are not just fleeting irritants that will pass in time without deep policy and funding intervention. Housing affordability and homelessness are now reported as significant issues across the globe where evidence of successful interventions remains scant.

The current housing affordability and homelessness landscape now requires a deep and multidimensional response — in the form of a comprehensive national housing and homelessness plan (national plan).

The development of such a plan has enormous potential to be more than just a vehicle that allocates funding and sets out reporting and data collection requirements. Instead, it could provide the framework necessary to consider the critical areas driving homelessness, at-risk groups and population dynamics. It would set clear, achievable and measurable goals to improve Australians’ access to secure and affordable housing and eradicate homelessness. 

Essential considerations for a new national plan

A robust national plan would outline the necessary investment in the supply of affordable and social housing, outlining clear responsibilities for local, state and Commonwealth input. It would also bring together the structural drivers — economic and social levers — for change. 

The success of the national plan would rely upon long-term planning that is based on up-to-date economic and population modelling, as well as urban planning reform that ensures that the construction lag of housing properties does not impact the ability to respond to housing need and homelessness.

A Commonwealth-led national plan would work to align state and territory housing and homelessness strategies with the national plan. The role of state governments in planning, development and aspects of service delivery could be integrated to ensure maximum benefit to those all along the housing spectrum, nationally.

To be effective, The Salvation Army believes that a new national plan must consider and incorporate the following elements:

• Draw together the key policy and funding portfolios across all levels of government that impact housing affordability and homelessness
• Commit to the eradication of homelessness, with clear targets to achieve that goal
• Engage with and gather input from frontline workers and people with lived experience
• Engage research and evaluation experts to investigate the structural causes of poverty, homelessness and housing unaffordability through a review addressing the adequacy of income support, Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) and other supplements
• Robust population modelling to inform current and projected affordable housing and homelessness need for all groups
• Commit to clear social and affordable housing targets that are ambitious and proportionate to need
• Fully recognise the different groups, their current and projected numbers and specific housing and support needs 
• Acknowledge the unique housing-related issues and homelessness among young people and ensure an adjunct/standalone strategy
• Ensure improved data and reporting for housing and homelessness providers 
• Recognise the significant and ongoing investment in renewal, refurbishment and upgrades to existing social housing stock, to extend the useful and most efficient life of these critical assets
• Construction and retrofitting of energy-efficient and environmentally friendly homes which contribute to emissions-reduction goals, especially for low-income households 
• Develop shared funding, co-investment and incentives models required to grow social housing in partnership with the private and not-for-profit sector
• Ensure planned and ongoing funding pipelines to maximise the capacity of the community housing sector
• Be adequately and transparently resourced, including clear responsibilities to address short, medium and long-term housing and homelessness need
• Invest in examples of good practice and innovative solutions that can be shared and scaled

Despite previous calls by The Salvation Army and others in the wider housing and homelessness sector to incorporate many of these elements into any new national plan, they still appear to be beyond the comfort zone of governments.

Conclusion

With the housing affordability crisis showing no apparent end, the emergence of newly affected groups in the community, the risks arising from increases (and falls) to interest rates, and critical public housing infrastructure that has been left in decline for decades, deep, long-term and multidimensional reform is urgently required.

As a society, we don’t have to accept that unaffordable housing and homelessness are inevitable and beyond our control. We know it doesn’t have to be this way. Therefore, The Salvation Army is calling on the Australian Government to develop a national housing and homelessness plan that has the depth and breadth to end homelessness now and into the future.