Page 5414 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 November 2010
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Strengthening and growing the community housing sector is an explicit objective of the reforms agreed by COAG, which are being delivered by housing ministers under the national affordable housing agreement. Housing ministers have agreed that up to 75 per cent of housing stock constructed under stage 2 of the $5.64 billion nation building and jobs plan will be transferred to the community housing providers by 30 July 2014, and that jurisdictions and the commonwealth will develop over time a large-scale, not-for-profit sector in Australia comprising up to 35 per cent of social housing by 2014.
My predecessor, John Hargreaves, strongly represented the interests of small jurisdictions on this issue and achieved the following important concessions: that community housing growth should not occur through the loss of overall stock numbers in public housing, that public housing must still be viable, and that there should be no reduction in the capacity overall to house priority clients into the future.
These are ambitious targets for growth, and to achieve it, there is a significant focus on strengthening the role and capacity of community housing in the not-for-profit sector nationally. The community housing sector in each jurisdiction varies greatly, and the commonwealth has acknowledged that each jurisdiction will require individual plans for community housing growth in recognition of the specific circumstances in each jurisdiction.
The sector in the ACT is very small, with fewer than 400 tenancies compared to the 11,200 tenancies in public housing. This arrangement is largely historical and reflects the vital role of public housing in building the Canberra community. The aim of these reforms is to develop a strong, vibrant community housing sector that affords customers the opportunity to make a genuine choice over their landlord and to drive up the quality of service delivery by introducing competition, including competition for capital funding. The growth in social housing stock will also be supported through the higher rents charges—up to 75 per cent of market rent, tenant access to commonwealth rent assistance and lower taxation arrangements through exemptions from income tax and GST.
There will be new players in this space who have expertise in other types of social housing and other types of supportive housing. The commonwealth’s national rental affordability scheme has attracted several large welfare and church organisations for whom social housing has not to date been a core part of their business. These organisations bring considerable capability and substantial assets, including land holdings, which would accelerate growth across the sector.
There are now a small number of growth providers in community housing, and they have grown steadily over the past three years and will receive a significant boost through the national rental affordability scheme and the transfer of stock funded under the social housing initiative and the nation building economic stimulus plan. These two measures alone will roughly double the number of community housing dwellings and take a proportion of social housing stock in community housing hands to around 15 per cent nationally. This will provide a solid base for further expansion of the sector.
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