Page 3496 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The focus of their activities is on strengthening communities in ways that support greater social inclusion for their tenants or target groups.
While it has been said that public housing can do the job as well as community housing, and cheaper, that is not a view that I accept. Not only is public housing limited in responsiveness by a brief that has become more and more welfare focused, it does not have, in the ACT or elsewhere, the community-building capacity that is the strength and purpose of the community housing sector.
In September 2001 the ACT government released a consultative paper titled Community housing in the ACT—future directions. This paper included the goal of expanding community housing to 1,000 properties by 2005. Minister Wood and the department subsequently consulted with the sector and issued a revised paper in May 2003 titled Community housing in the ACT—future directions policy framework. Note that this was a policy framework. It did not, to quote from the paper’s introduction, “purport to represent the concluded views of the ACT Government or Minister for Housing in relation to housing policy matters”.
The goal of expanding community housing to 1,000 properties by 2005 was absent from this paper, but the government’s commitment to expand a diverse community sector remained. The 2003 paper also told us that the community housing policy and action plan were yet to come. Unfortunately, they have never arrived.
Over this time the sector has evolved. It includes a number of small providers that had the reasonable expectation that they would grow in accord with stated government intentions. Some of these organisations, such as Canberra Community Housing for Young People, CCHYP, have used a mix of community housing and SAAP funding to deliver concentrated and effective support for their tenants as needed. This more active approach has allowed them to maintain challenging tenancies, the benefits of which to the people and the families of the people involved, to the community and to government agencies have been immeasurable.
Unfortunately, all the momentum on community housing under Bill Wood from 2001 went when he left the Assembly in 2004. The recommendations of the affordable housing task force and the proposed community housing action plan, amongst other strategies, disappeared. While community housing took one step forward between 2001 and 2004, it has taken two steps back since.
In September 2005 the minister’s housing advisory forum hosted an open discussion on community housing. It also issued a community housing discussion paper that summarised the views presented. This discussion paper once again talked about the need for an action plan. More than a year later, no action plan! The 2005 discussion paper also mentioned the ACT government’s implementation of various strategies from the 2003 Community housing in the ACT—future directions policy framework and quoted this document as if it were government policy. The 2003 paper, from our point of view, does not represent a finalised government policy on community housing, and the government is yet to make a clear commitment on the direction it envisages for community housing.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .