Our governments have failed us. They have failed our youth, they have failed vulnerable women, and men over 50 and every other person in between who for many reasons have been unable to secure an affordable and safe place to live.
How is it that we have women like Suzi Shand living in a caravan on someone’s property in Central Victoria?
How is is that researchers estimate 440,000 older households in Australia will be without suitable homes by 2031?
And how is it that there is not enough being done to resolve this!?
AHURI has just released a report from their Inquiry into housing policies and practices for precariously housed older Australians and the key findings show there is growing instability in the housing circumstances of the older population, witnessed through increasing housing precariousness and homelessness, which is the result of declining rates of home ownership, carriage of mortgage debt into retirement, restricted access to social housing and a decline over time in investment in alternative affordable housing options.
The older people at risk of housing precarity are a subset of the older population. Analysis of census data indicates that, at the moment, they are the ‘young old’, likely to be female with little if any attachment to the workforce (and, therefore, no means of acquiring wealth), living alone and likely to need assistance. Older people in need are spread across metropolitan, urban and regional communities and are expected to grow in number over the next decade or so. The group is not highly mobile, making the targeting of assistance to support alternative housing arrangements arguably easier, more efficient and effective than for other groups within the housing system.
From the survey research and testing of composite alternative housing models, lower income older people’s housing aspirations are reflective of the aspirations of older Australians more generally (regardless of income and wealth) and are consistent with people’s life experiences. As the housing market has tightened in terms of cost and availability, however, there is a clear mismatch between what older people desire and what is possible
for them to access and sustain. Older people desire home ownership and the security and independence that it
provides. Beyond tenure, and reflecting the nature of the built form in Australia, older tenants have a preference
for detached housing with two or three bedrooms. Despite this, research indicates that lower income renters,
especially as the housing market tightens, are interested in, and more open to alternative housing options.
Yet, there is both a lack of alternative housing options and a lack of knowledge about those that exist, their conditions and risks. These factors serve as a significant barrier to the uptake of alternative housing options in Australia. The development of alternative housing options for lower income older households is in its infancy in Australia. While a number of small-scale models of alternative housing provision have emerged, provision at scale seems unlikely for the foreseeable future. A wide array of barriers or obstacles across financing, taxes and charges,
regulation and planning spheres currently exist. At the same time, changes are occurring in what has previously
served as, or been seen as, the ‘alternative’ housing market for older people, reducing the number of homes that
were traditionally available to lower income older households.
A policy environment that recognises the central role of housing as a public good with flow-on effects for people’s
health, wellbeing and social inclusion is important in envisioning the types of housing options suitable and desired
by older people in an affordable housing market. We need a clear and consistent vision and cooperation across sectors, driven by a coherent national housing policy.