NSW to lose 3360 affordable homes: See which suburbs get hit the hardest
Sydney Morning Herald
November 28, 2021


NSW will lose more than 3000 affordable homes over the next five years as the federal government abandons the Rudd-era National Rental Affordability Scheme, a new report says.   

A Community Housing Industry Association analysis concludes 3360 properties in NSW discounted for low-income households will revert to market rates in the private rental market by 2026.

Association chief executive Mark Degotardi said most of the properties removed from the scheme were in local government areas that were unaffordable to households with moderate incomes.

“Some of the properties that are going to exit are in areas which are in quite bad rental housing stress,” Mr Degotardi said.

“Even though the largest by number of properties are around the Sydney area, places like the Tweed [and Port Macquarie-Hastings] on the North Coast are going to see large proportions of the rental stock no longer being affordable, with no access to any other kind of affordable housing.”

Under the scheme, both private investors and community housing providers received flat-rate annual payments, indexed to inflation, from federal and state and territory governments. In exchange, they had to lease the homes at a discounted rate to low-income households.


In a bid to encourage housing supply, the scheme was only available for new properties for a 10-year term. In the 2014 budget the Abbott government announced it would close the scheme to new entrants and it would be phased out by 2026.

The association analysis finds all the privately owned properties in the scheme will no longer be affordable housing without the subsidy, and will revert to market rates as the 10-year period concludes.

There are an additional 3161 properties in the scheme owned by community housing providers, which are expected to retain them as affordable homes despite the loss of the subsidy.



Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, Social and Community Housing Michael Sukkar said: “The NRAS is not being extended because it is a deeply flawed program”.

The scheme delivered more than 38,000 new properties nationally, including 6545 in NSW, but was found by the National Audit Office in 2015 to be slow in delivery and failing to meet its delivery targets despite ongoing government funding.

Suburbs losing out   
Chippendale: 828

Penrith: 258

Guildford: 196

Glebe: 158

Telopea: 152

Fairfield: 134

Ropes Crossing: 109

Port Macquarie: 106

Parramatta: 105

Tweed Heads: 102

Zetland: 94

Campbelltown: 87

Eveleigh: 87

Wentworthville: 78

Goulburn: 76

Redfern: 76

The Grattan Institute described the scheme in a 2019 report as “plagued with administrative issues” and “expensive, unfair and poorly targeted” with a warning that “governments should think twice about doing NRAS again”. Grattan suggested alternatives such as providing rent assistance provided directly to tenants, social housing via the states, or capital grants to community housing providers.

Mr Sukkar did not outline a direct replacement for the scheme but said the government had supported more than 13,000 social affordable properties through the National Housing Financing and Investment Corporation, established in 2018.

NSW Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services, Alister Henskens, said the scheme was a Commonwealth matter, but NSW was working with the community housing sector to deliver a pipeline of new social and affordable housing and had a range of rent assistance programs.


Mr Degotardi said the main flaw with the scheme was that the level of subsidy to private developers was too high, but the part run by the community housing providers was working efficiently.

“Throwing the whole scheme out … doesn’t seem to make much sense to us particularly when there is such a critical shortage of affordable rental housing,” he said.    

Meanwhile, NSW is testing a new model for community housing for people with complex mental health needs, starting with 20 studio apartments in an old warehouse in Summer Hill.

The NSW Government’s Community Housing Innovation Fund tipped in $5 million, while housing provider Habilis is providing $4.7 million. There is also ongoing funding from NSW Health and a donation from a private benefactor.

Mental Health Minister Bronnie Taylor said people with mental illness were more likely to wind up homeless, while people who were homeless found it harder to access services especially specialised mental health services.

The project includes a caretaker on site and wraparound mental health services, including a psychiatrist who offers treatment on site. Mrs Taylor visited a similar model in operation in Victoria, which found a high reduction in people presenting to emergency departments after moving into the complex.

“I just thought that that was tremendous because what it meant was that there was someone there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, who knew the people living there and were able to help them manage and live really well with their mental illness,” Mrs Taylor

If the rich and powerful want to get even richer and powerful - away from the Egalitarian 'middle-ground' and towards the Capitalist 'higher ground'... they gotta 'break the poorer' towards absolute destitution.

While the rich and powerful become even more richer and powerful, the poor will become poorer as they start to breed like rabbits and over-populate because all that they will have 'down there' is a bit of love and crowded 'company'.

Via the PM's - the USA is trying to 'break' Egalitarian Australia under the UK, into being like them - a Capitalist Pig nation.

...the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of exclusion from fear, free water that falls from the sky, to get to work with enough in the pocket to eat lunch, and to have a roof over the head thus saving the depleted health system a fortune in unnecessary illnesses along with the law system in unnecessary offences.....  people gotta live somehow... reminds me as far back as the late 1960's where a graffiti posted said 'Eat The Rich'.....

Neo poverty brought to you courtesy of St Gladys and The Like, NSW Tour 2000-2021.

Yeah redfern is beachfront.

Spot

On Marslow's hierarchy of needs, feeling safe is a key need at the very bottom of the needs.
No wonder people feel so unfulfilled when even basic housing is at a point were it's not available.

But simply providing housing is only a small part of the problem.
People need work, a meaningful existence and acceptance.

Bringing in more people who take what jobs are available,
who move into the available housing and who establish themselves by working for a pittance only exasperates the problem.

Lack of skilled fruit pickers is a bull shite excuse.
Lack of skilled baristas is a bull shite excuse.

There's a shortage of kangaroos in the top paddock of the Australian psyche.

Australian ingenuity is the answer. The lean to. The cute fence is an optional extra.