The South Australian Council of Social Service and its members welcome the Federal Government’s announcement of immediate and significant funding to state and territory governments for social housing.
South Australia will receive $136m from the Social Housing Accelerator scheme before the end of the current financial year. It will be used to refurbish existing public housing and to build new public and community housing over the next two financial years.
The additional federal funding will be a vital supplement for the South Australian government’s Better Housing Futures plan and will lead to the biggest investments in social housing in decades.
Quotes attributable to SACOSS CEO Ross Womersley
“SACOSS and other housing groups have long argued that restoring the public housing estate remains one of the most powerful ways our state government can impact on the rental and housing affordability crisis SA is currently facing. It is great to see both state and federal government now recognising and working together on this.
“However, the job is not done. This Federal funding might see around 300 new houses built over two years, while the state government’s existing plan will see 564 new dwellings over four years. But those numbers will be barely enough to cover population growth and maintain public housing’s share of the market. As important as it is, this funding will do little to restore past losses of public housing. To cover population growth and the public housing lost just in the last four years requires about 1000 new properties a year.
“And even with the fast-tracking of this federal funding, it will take a while for new social housing to be built and for the benefits of increased supply to flow through to the market more broadly. Clearly the government still needs to provide immediate relief for current renters by capping rent price increases. Capping price increases to CPI will protect vulnerable renters from excessive rent increases, but still enables landlords to maintain real income levels.
“So, while we are delighted with this announcement of new funding, we need more investment in the longer term and we need immediate action to prevent current excessive rent price increases.”
Quotes attributable to Uniting Communities CEO, Simon Schrapel (one of SACOSS’ key member organisations)
“If we want to make a serious tilt at addressing the lack of affordable and social housing in SA, now is the perfect opportunity to match the federal government’s newly announced injection of funds for our state.
“This would provide not only an immediate boost for our building sector but more importantly, a chance to rebuild our diminishing stock of social housing which was once the envy of the nation.”