All positive life outcomes start with having a home in place.
Secure, affordable and well-located housing enables people to participate in the workforce, engage in education and training and contribute to a more productive economy. It reduces commuting times, stabilises household budgets, and supports physical and mental health.
Modern homelessness is affecting us all. It’s upstanding everyday people from all parts of society. It’s nurses, ambos, police officers, teachers and hospitality workers. People we all rely on to keep us safe, healthy and educated. It’s retirees who have worked hard all their lives, but without home ownership will lose all their super to rent in a few years. Hundreds of thousands more low to middle income households are under severe housing stress.
If action is not taken immediately, our future – children who are in school now – will never be in a position to have the safety and security of owning their own home.
More than 640,000 households are in housing need, a figure forecast to reach 940,000 by 2041. Without urgent action, this shortfall will be a significant drag on workforce participation, increase pressure on essential services and undermine national growth and Australia’s standard of living.
The lack of adequate and affordable housing is the most critical issue facing our society. Safe and adequate housing is a basic human right. Providing that right is a fundamental responsibility of the government.
There is only one solution.
The government must step-up and commit to building one in ten new homes at speed and scale.
The new faces
of homelessness.
The new faces of homelessness are your child’s teacher, your local frontliner, the medical student, your gran’s oldest friend, your barista, the parent you chat to at school drop off. No-one is immune.
Understanding the problem.
Government after government has looked to the private sector to provide housing that everyday people can afford and the results have been catastrophic.
The market has failed and action must be taken urgently before the social fabric of our society is destroyed.
There is a solution.
ONE IN TEN
The government MUST commit to build one in ten new affordable houses.
Housing was affordable when the government built affordable homes.
Both sides of politics (aligned) built homes, and it worked for decades – 15% of new homes in the 50s and 60s and 10% in the 70s and 80s.
Now they build almost none.
We need the government to build again.
