Page 1361 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
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However, CHC Affordable Housing, as it is known, is no longer a member of the community housing sector as we see it. CHC Affordable Housing is a supplier of housing to community housing operators but it does not manage housing in a community housing model itself.
In debate on the Housing Assistance Amendment Bill last year, the minister for housing acknowledged the difference between community and affordable housing providers, stating:
It is the government’s intention to develop separate and tailored monitoring guidelines for the two different tiers—affordable and community housing providers—which will ensure that the guidelines are appropriate to the activities being undertaken by providers in each tier.
In 2006-2007, the ACT government changed the funding models for the management of community housing from a set budget amount for each program to a set service-based amount for each tenancy based on the room occupancy rate. This meant that in real terms there was a fall in the level of government funding to community housing organisations.
It now seems that the ACT government has relayed its intention to introduce a rental charge of 35 per cent of market rent on its properties subleased by community housing organisations from Housing ACT. With the government push to increase the number of tenants paying more than 25 per cent of income, there will be further pressure on the availability of community housing for people on genuinely low incomes or with special needs.
Let us also not forget that, after only about three years of receiving funding for staff, CHOACT, which is the sector’s key body, was de-funded by the minister for housing through the 2006-07 budget. Community housing providers have been rather shaken up by this government in the past few years. There may have been some greater efficiency achieved but there also has been a lot of capital, such as expertise and a good working relationship, lost in the process.
So the need for capacity building has been compounded both by the changes the government has driven through and the way it has done so. In short then, it is our view that the government needs to build a partnership with the community housing sector and peak groups representing service providers and consumers if it is to be able to meet the commonwealth’s requirements and capably deliver the housing mix that Canberra needs.
This is the point of the proposed consultant forum and the call for government to subsequently take a partnership approach to the implementation of new housing programs. It may well be that the government officers are confident they know what is needed on all fronts. I have to say that we do not share that confidence.
We are talking here about identifying a range of housing needs. There is a demonstrated need, for example, for well-designed, energy efficient, affordable houses for very large families. At present there is almost no such stock in the territory
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