Page 2112 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
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The ACT government made a very significant decision on this matter recently: cabinet decided to endorse a range of recommendations to increase the amount of public housing we have available for members of our community, to speed up the renewal process of our older properties and to maintain and expand the salt-and-pepper approach to public housing in existing and new suburbs. Perhaps even more significantly, this whole-of-government approach signals an evolution in housing that has been taking place slowly over the last year. That is an understanding that when people seek public housing, they do not do so simply because they lack accommodation but for a raft of reasons—from temporary financial difficulty to long-term homelessness, from personal crises to difficulties with social inclusion. Our tenants are diverse and their needs and the level of support they require are not homogenous. A whole-of-government approach focuses on providing a more cohesive and integrated range of services to our tenants and others who need them.
I can say unequivocally that we need to grow our social housing stock and we need to be more responsive to the environmental and social needs of a modern housing portfolio. That means we must renew and redevelop our housing stock so we can better support vulnerable members of our community. It means improving the quality of our housing, for instance, fulfilling our parliamentary agreement item to continue expanding public housing efficiency upgrades to reduce the environmental impact and to make heating and cooling more affordable for tenants. It means building new housing designed to meet the needs of tenants. Often this will mean smaller complexes of 10 to 15 units to reduce the risk of pockets of disadvantage forming and to promote more inclusive neighbourhoods, but it also means things like making sure houses are adaptable and accessible for people with disabilities or mobility problems so if a new tenant comes in there is not the need for significant modifications.
It also means changing our approach to managing tenants, which was started recently by introducing a new management model for Housing ACT that adopts a more responsive, tiered approach to directing the time, resources and services provided by housing managers. I was very pleased to launch this initiative as I felt it reflects the real diversity of Housing ACT tenants and means that those who need the most resources will receive them. It should lead to a reduction in the neighbourhood disputes that, unfortunately, arise from time to time in our suburbs.
Having said all of those things about the role of government, it is clear that housing insecurity and homelessness cannot be solved by government alone. To do this, we need to work with the community sector housing providers to support the sector’s growth and the sector’s role in providing an affordable alternative to public and private housing. It means working with a range of partners to increase the supply of all housing types, especially affordable housing, and to developing new financial models for housing supply.
I think Minister Barr spoke of Common Ground, and that is a good example in this space. It was a community initiative to identify the idea and urge the Canberra community to move forward on it. We then saw through a range of outcomes, including in the parliament agreement, government commit funding to that model, which has facilitated it going ahead. Finally, there is a range of NGO partners,
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